Kernels of Resistance: Maize, Food Sovereignty, and Collective Power

Winner of the 2025 Murdo J. Macleod Book Prize, Latin American and Caribbean Section of the Southern Historical Association

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

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 Maya elders responded with a campaign of mass civil disobedience, blocking highways until the Guatemalan Congress repealed this “Monsanto Law.”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.
DOI: 10.6069/9780295753317

Liza Grandia is a cultural anthropologist and professor in the Native American Studies Department at the University of California, Davis. Her first book was Enclosed: Conservation, Cattle, and Commerce among the Q'eqchi' Maya Lowlanders.