WE ARE NOT THE UNITED STATES OF BAYER-MONSANTO

Stop forcing GMO corn on Mexico

October 30, 2022 by GMO/Toxin Free USA Staff

In late 2020, Mexico announced that the country would be phasing out the use of glyphosate herbicides, the cultivation of GMO corn, and the import of GMO corn for human consumption and livestock feed by the end of 2024. The reasons for the decree given by Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador are to protect the health of Mexico’s consumers and protect small-scale farmers, the environment, and the purity of Mexico’s native corn varieties.

The decree states, “With the objective of achieving self-sufficiency and food sovereignty, our country must be oriented towards establishing sustainable and culturally adequate agricultural production, through the use of agroecological practices and inputs that are safe for human health, the country’s biocultural diversity and the environment, as well as congruent with the agricultural traditions of Mexico.”

Bayer-Monsanto and Dow have since launched at least 43 lawsuits in Mexico attempting to overturn the presidential decree. Also, the GMO/chemical industry, fearing that Mexico will set a precedent for other countries to enact similar restrictions, are puppeteering agencies and officials within the U.S. government to pressure Mexico to abandon its plans. This is not the first time Bayer has forced our government to act on its behalf. In 2019, the corporation succeeded in using U.S. officials to pressure Thailand into reversing course on its ban on glyphosate.

President Biden’s U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Ambassador Katherine Tai is being lobbied to bring dispute-settlement procedures against Mexico under the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA). In a Senate Finance Committee hearing, Senator Chuck Grassley urged Ambassador Tai to get her Mexican counterpart to reverse Mexico’s GMO corn and glyphosate bans. And industrial agriculture and chemical trade lobbies such as CropLife America, American Farm Bureau Federation and National Corn Growers Association have also been putting pressure on Ambassador Tai.

It seems Bayer has also found an ally in Mexico. On July 12, 2022, Mexico’s 6th Administrative District Judge, Francisco Javier Rebolledo, overturned Obrador’s 2020 presidential decree.

But the Obrador administration is not backing down despite threats and legal challenges. In a Reuters exclusive on October 27, 2022, Deputy Agriculture Minister Victor Suarez told Reuters that the country is considering direct agreements with farmers in the United States, Argentina and Brazil to secure non-GMO yellow corn imports. Suarez said he did not believe Mexico’s decree presented any violation of the USMCA, saying the country was “under no obligation to buy and grow GM corn.”

“We respect and care for (the trade pact), but the USMCA is not God, nor is it our constitution,” Suarez said.

According to the Organic & Non-GMO Report: While U.S. agribusiness groups are trying to pressure Mexico into abandoning their bans on glyphosate herbicide and imports of genetically modified corn by 2024, U.S. suppliers of non-GMO seed and grain see an opportunity to supply Mexico with non-GMO corn. “Could we supply Mexico? Absolutely,” says Bill Niebur, president of High Fidelity Genetics, an Iowa-based non-GMO corn seed company. “In terms of acres, it’s not a problem. Instead of criticizing Mexico, let’s provide it to them.”

The pressure on Mexico needs to stop. The USTR and other government agencies should not do the bidding of Bayer-Monsanto. Taxpayer dollars should not be used to force the toxic products of the GMO/chemical industry onto other nations.

Instead, our government should be investing resources to help our farmers produce what the rest of the world wants.

If Mexico wants non-GMO corn, let’s give it to them. If other countries want to ban glyphosate or other toxic products of the chemical industry, they have every right to do so. Americans do not want our government to be used by the GMO/chemical industry to bully the world. We are not the United States of Bayer-Monsanto.

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References:

Thailand’s reversal on glyphosate ban came after Bayer scripted U.S. intervention, documents show, USTRK.org, Sept 17, 2020

Revealed: Monsanto owner and US officials pressured Mexico to drop glyphosate ban, The Guardian, Feb 16, 2021

Mexico to ban glyphosate, GM corn: Presidential decree comes despite intense pressure from industry, US authorities, Inter Press Service News, Feb 24, 2021

Stopping the Race to the Bottom in Trade Policy, The American Prospect, March 15, 2021

Rehabilitating protection and resituating trade agreements, The Hill, April 11, 2021

Mexico wants to import non-GMO corn, and U.S. grain suppliers say they can deliver it, The Organic & Non-GMO Report, May 14, 2021

Mexico: Presidential decree to eliminate glyphosate ruled unconstitutional, Justice Pesticides newsletter, September 2022

EXCLUSIVE Mexico to proceed with GMO corn ban, seeks international grain deals -official, Reuters. October 27, 2022