Mexico is saying “adios” to GMO corn while its government has a knock-down, drag-out fight ahead of it to make it all but official.
Refresher: On the eve of 2021, Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a decree banning the production, consumption, and import of bioengineered corn, effective in 2024.
But he didn’t stop with maize. The ban included the use of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, which many producers use to control weeds.
Organic producers praised the move as a “huge victory,” but not everyone is joining the fiesta.
Mexico’s corn industry chamber shot it straight: “This decree is completely divorced from reality.”
Mexicans grow nearly all of the white corn they need to roll out their staple tortillas. But their livestock relies on GMO yellow dent corn, almost all imported from the U.S.
By the numbers:
→ 40%: The livestock sector’s share of the Mexican farm economy.
→ 95%: The portion of imported GMO corn supplied by the U.S.
And with Mexico being U.S. corn farmers’ biggest customer, the industry is concerned. To be noted, China is forecasted to increase its U.S. corn imports, but Mexico has traditionally been our most predictable and loyal amigo. Until now…
Where this goes: With concerns over the action being anti-USMCA (as in, illegal) and detrimental to Mexican corn and livestock producers, this fight will be duked out in the courts.
