Record 'Dead Zone' Predicted in Gulf of Mexico

By Doyle Rice
The "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico - a region of oxygen-depleted water off the Louisiana and Texas coasts that is harmful to sea life and the commercial fishing industry - is predicted to be the largest ever recorded this year, federal scientists announced Tuesday.

The unusually large size of the zone is due to the extreme flooding of the Mississippi River this spring.

The dead zone occurs when there is not enough oxygen in the water to support marine life. Also known as "hypoxia," it is created by nutrient runoff, mostly from over-application of fertilizer on agricultural fields. It flows into streams, then rivers and eventually the Gulf.

Forty-one percent of the contiguous USA drains into the Mississippi River and then out to the Gulf of Mexico. The majority of the land in Mississippi's watershed is farm land.

Excess nutrients such as nitrogen can spur the growth of algae, and when the algae die, their decay consumes oxygen faster than it can be brought down from the surface, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As a result, fish, shrimp and crabs can suffocate, threatening the region's commercial fishing industry.

Farmworkers Bear the Brunt of New Mexico Chile Crisis

By Kent Paterson

For centuries the chile trade bound together the remote Hispano villages of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, provided the culinary glue for fall family get-togethers and gave linguistic flavor to countless conversations on the topic of chile across the state.

In the late 20th Century, a large commercial chile industry boomed in the southern part of the state near the Mexican border, drawing in thousands of immigrant farmworkers who earned a seasonal if precarious living from hand-picking the spicy pods that delighted connoisuers everywhere.

Nowadays, the fortunes of New Mexico's cherished chile crop are on the downside. Just ask Jose Rocha. A veteran farmworker with nearly four decades of experience in the fields of New Mexico and the US, Rocha says he once worked "first class fields" in a wide swath of the borderland chile-growing belt.

Today's  farm is very different than the one before, according to Rocha. "Sometimes the land gives, sometimes it doesn't," the Mexico-born worker says. "There are bad (chile) rows and and good rows." Nowadays, Rocha encounters slimmer pickings, job-killing machines that methodically pluck rows of ripe chile where humans once treaded and fewer dollars in his pocket.

Monsanto Pushing to Legalize Commercial Planting of GE Corn in Mexico

MEXICO CITY-Mexico, the birthplace of corn, is edging toward the use of genetically modified varieties to lower its dependence on imports, but strong opposition among some growers and environmentalists, who see altered corn as a threat to native strains, has kept the wheels turning slowly.

Monsanto Co., DuPont Co.'s Pioneer Hi-Bred unit and Dow Chemical Co,'s Dow AgroSciences recently completed small, controlled experiments in northern Mexico with genetically modified corn, and are seeking government authorization to enter a "pre-commercial" phase, expanding the growing area to nearly 500 acres from 35 acres.

The trials began in October 2009, four years after Mexico lifted an 11-year moratorium on genetically modified corn-or maize-to which scientists have added desirable traits like pest resistance.

Many farmers and environmentalists, however, fear that altered corn will cross-breed with the nearly 60 documented native maize varieties, transforming the biology of the grain, a dietary staple with deep cultural significance here. By contrast, genetically modified cotton, alfalfa and soybeans are widely accepted and cultivated on nearly 250,000 acres across the country.

"We are the children of corn. It's our life, and we need to protect it," said José Bernardo Magdaleno Velasco, a corn producer in Venustiano Carranza in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, where he grows two native varieties. According to Mayan legend, the gods created humans from corn. The plant is still used in some indigenous religious rituals.

Two types of genetically modified corn are produced commercially in 16 countries, led by the U.S., but almost nowhere has their introduction met the resistance it has in Mexico.

Protests have been staged across the country, and a coalition of 300 groups has led a campaign called "Sin maiz no hay pais," or "Without corn there is no country."

Opening the doors to genetically modified corn, its opponents fear, would contaminate native varieties, such as the red Xocoyol or the black Yautsi, increase dependence on foreign companies and possibly harm the nation's environment and health.