Book Launch: Kernels of Resistance

Join Thinking Food & Native American Studies at the Student Farm for :

The story of how Mesoamerican food activists faced down Monsanto . . . and won

Download the book and learn more on Professor Grandia's website

Register here for Zoom/Hybrid Option.

4:00 PM Opening Remarks
4:10 PM Presentation and Reading - Professor Liza Grandia (UC Davis, Native American Studies)
4:50 PM Q&A
5:10 PM Book Signing & Action Organization
5:30 PM Event Concludes

Please refrain from wearing fragrances. Masks are encouraged to protect the immunocompromised in attendance.

This event is sponsored by:
Native American Studies | Thinking Food | The Native Nest | Agricultural Sustainability Institute | Indigenous Research Center of the Americas | Hemispheric Institute of the Americas | Department of Anthropology | Department of Chicana/o/x Studies

Right before the 2014 World Cup, US trade interests pressured Guatemala’s legislature into lifting its national ban on genetically modified (GM) crops and criminalizing traditional seed saving practices. Maya elders responded with a campaign of mass civil disobedience, blocking highways until the Guatemalan Congress repealed this “Monsanto Law.” Uniting rural and urban Guatemalans, this uprising spotlighted the existential threat of GM corn to the livelihood, dignity, and cultural heritage of maize-producing milperos (small farmers) throughout Mesoamerica. Ten years later, Mexico is also facing down US trade aggression to defend a 2020 presidential ban on the import of GM corn for human consumption.

Liza Grandia chronicles how diverse coalitions in Mexico and Guatemala have defended their sacred maize against corporate threats to privatize it. Rather than just “voting with their forks” like the consumer-driven US food movement, Mesoamerican farmers and their allies have voted with their feet through direct action. In a world of interconnected trade, their victories chart a path that other food movements might follow. They also show how everyday people can demand better regulatory protections for environmental health and forge more climate-resilient agricultural systems with native seed saving.

Dramatic and timely, Kernels of Resistance celebrates this Indigenous triumph over corporate greed.

This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the generous support of the UC Davis Library at the University of California, Davis.

About the author: For the last three decades, Dr. Liza Grandia has collaborated with environmental, social, and agrarian justice movements in the Maya lowlands. She lived for almost seven years in remote communities of northern Guatemala and Belize and became proficient in Q’eqchi’, the second most commonly spoken Maya language in Mesoamerica (by about a million people). A cultural anthropologist by training, she now serves as chair of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis.

The Ecological Garden is located on Extension Center Drive, just past the Plant Reproductive Biology building, on the south/left side of the road. Look for an old yellow field house and a walking path leading into the garden. An SF map is also located here. Take a left on this path to enter the garden. Be cautious about kids and pedestrians on this path. The Field House and adjacent toolshed are the center of operations for the Ecological Garden.

Bowley Science and Teaching Center is located off of Extension Center Drive, just south of the Ecological Garden. Follow directions to the Ecological Garden (above) and continue past the field house on the walking path. The path ends at the double doors of Bowley Center. Bowley Center is where most Student Farm-oriented lectures and meetings take place.

From the North, take Highway 113S. Exit on Hutchison Drive; turn left at the end of the off-ramp, cross over the freeway. TAKE THE FIRST AVAILABLE LEFT turn onto EXTENSION CENTER DR. (This left turn is about 30 yards before a traffic light at the intersection with La Rue Rd. If you cross La Rue Rd, you’ve gone too far.)

From the West/Bay Area, take I-80 East. Take Highway 113 North (this is approximately 4.5 miles after the “Highway 113 South” exit in Dixon). From Highway 113, exit on Hutchison Drive and go east (right) toward the main campus. TAKE THE FIRST AVAILABLE LEFT turn onto EXTENSION CENTER DR. (This left turn is about 30 yards before a traffic light at the intersection with La Rue Rd. If you cross La Rue Rd, you’ve gone too far).

From the East/Sacramento, take I-80 West. Right after the Davis and UC Davis exits, take Highway 113 North. From Highway 113, exit on Hutchison Drive and go east (right) toward the main campus. TAKE THE FIRST AVAILABLE LEFT turn onto EXTENSION CENTER DR. (This left turn is about 30 yards before a traffic light at the intersection with La Rue Rd. If you cross La Rue Rd, you’ve gone too far).

Once on Extension Center Dr, there will be a visitor parking lot on your right where you can park for $9.00/day (credit/debit cards accepted). From here you are within easy walking distance to the Ecological Garden, Bowley Center, and Market Garden (see map attached) and follow walking directions to various SF spaces above.

Host or Publisher UC Davis Library