TWN Info Service on Biosafety
25 March 2025
Third World Network
www.twn.my
Dear Friends and Colleagues
Mexico’s Ban on GM Corn Cultivation Constitutionally Approved
Mexico’s leaders have voted to ban the planting of GM corn, declaring native corn “an element of national identity”.
The measure, via an amendment to the Constitution, comes after the recent defeat of a related effort that sought to phase out all imports of GM corn. Then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a presidential decree in 2023 banning the use of GM corn in dough and tortillas and for animal feed and industrial use, but a trade dispute panel ruled that it violated the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Therefore, the import and consumption of GM corn will still be permitted in the country as will the use of the accompanying herbicide, glyphosate.
Mexico has nonetheless consistently maintained that GM corn and glyphosate are detrimental to the health of Mexicans and a threat to its vast diversity of corn which is the root of its culture and identity.
With best wishes,
Third World Network
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Item 1
Don’t mess with Mexico’s maíz: Constitutional amendment to ban GMO corn seeds
By Kate Linthicum
Los Angeles Times
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-03-13/mexico-bans-planting-of-gmo-american-corn
13 March 2025
MEXICO CITY — There’s a popular saying in Mexico, where corn is as central to national mythology as it is gastronomy.
Sin maíz, no hay país. Without corn, there is no country.
This week, Mexico’s leaders voted to enshrine that concept in the Constitution, declaring native corn “an element of national identity” and banning the planting of genetically modified seeds.
The measure, which aims to protect Mexico’s thousands of varieties of heirloom corn from engineered versions sold by American companies, has become a nationalist rallying cry. Support for the reform has only grown in recent months as Mexico has fended off insults, threats of tariffs and even the specter of U.S. military intervention from President Trump.
“Corn is Mexico,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said recently, describing the reform as a way to secure Mexico’s sovereignty. “We have to protect it for biodiversity but also culturally, because corn is what intrinsically links us to our origins, to the resistance of Indigenous peoples.”
The amendment to the Constitution comes after the defeat in December of a related effort that sought to phase out all imports of genetically modified corn. Then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a presidential decree in 2023 banning the use of genetically engineered corn in dough and tortillas and for animal feed and industrial use, but a trade dispute panel ruled that it violated the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Mexico agreed to abide by the panel’s ruling, and this week’s action targets seeds, not all products.
The amendment received the last approval needed from Congress on Wednesday and it has been sent to Sheinbaum for her signature. It was also approved by a majority of state legislatures.
Every year the U.S. sells Mexico about $5 billion of genetically modified corn, which has been designed to resist pests and tolerate herbicides. Most of that corn is used to feed livestock.
Even before the constitutional reform, it was mostly illegal to plant modified corn in Mexico thanks to a 2013 lawsuit brought by farmer activists. But experts say it still happens. And they say the presence of engineered seeds and corn in Mexico threatens the vast diversity of maize crops here, which span from burnt orange to purple and pink and which have been adapted over centuries to be grown at different altitudes and climates.
“There’s a disturbing level of contamination of native maize with genetically modified traits,” said Timothy Wise, a researcher at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. Some ancestral varieties of Mexican corn have already gone extinct, he said, “the product of illegal plantings and uncontrolled and undetected cross-pollination.”
That alarms many in Mexico, where corn has become not just a staple of the diet but a symbol of Mexico itself.
Corn was born here about 9,000 years ago, when Mesoamerican farmers started to domesticate the wild grass known as teosinte.
It has been revered here ever since, with sculptors carving images of Centeot, the Aztec deity of corn, into pre-Hispanic temples and artists such as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo prominently featuring corn husks, cornfields and corn dishes in their paintings.
The poet Octavio Paz was one of many to extol the plant’s virtues, saying, “The invention of corn by Mexicans is only comparable to man’s invention of fire.”
Probably no people in the world get a larger share of their calories from corn than Mexicans, with researchers estimating that the average person here eats one to two pounds per day.
It is mashed into masa and cooked into tortillas, tamales and tlacoyos. Its kernels are soaked in fragrant pozole and brewed into a hearty breakfast drink known as atole.
“It’s at the root of our culture, giving us strength and identity,” said María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, a researcher in molecular genetics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “It’s our staple. Losing sovereignty over a fundamental aspect of our life and health is very risky.”
Álvarez-Buylla led Mexico’s National Council on Humanities, Science and Technology until last year, and has published studies claiming risks to health and the environment from genetically modified corn and the herbicides associated with it.
She says U.S. corn is less nutritious than the Mexican version and is linked to liver disease and other problems. Her research found that 9 in 10 tortilla samples from several cities in Mexico had traces of genetically modified corn.
The U.S., its farmers and the companies that sell engineered corn seeds reject Mexico’s claim that their products come with risks.
They celebrated the December trade dispute ruling, which came after a concerted lobbying effort by corn producers in states such as Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska. “This win illustrates the power of corn advocacy,” said Kenneth Hartman Jr. of the National Corn Growers Assn.
Mexico was an exporter of corn until as recently as the 1980s. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, which laid the groundwork for the current trade pact, changed that.
Many small family farms in Mexico could not compete with big U.S. farmers who enjoy hefty federal subsidies. In the three decades since NAFTA took effect, annual corn imports to Mexico grew from roughly 3.1 million metric tons to nearly 23.4 million metric tons, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Grains Council.
The change forced many Mexican farmers to shift to subsistence farming or to take up seasonal work far from their homes. Many others left to find work in the United States.
Wise said it was ironic that the U.S. had used the free trade agreement to oppose Mexico’s efforts to ban corn imports at the same time that Trump imposed — and then reversed — tariffs on U.S. imports.
U.S. trade policy, he said, appears to be: “We’ll ignore the agreement when it’s convenient for us. We’ll enforce it when it has an impact on some biotech companies.”
He said Mexicans had long ago decided that they don’t want genetically modified corn, and that it largely came down to one thing: taste.
“Nobody wants to eat it,” he said.
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Item 2
EXPECTED BAN ON MEXICAN GM CORN FETCHES PRAISE — AND WORRY OVER IMPORTS
Adam D. Williams
Mongabay
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/expected-ban-on-mexican-gm-corn-fetches-praise-and-worry-over-imports/
5 February 2025
This month, Mexico’s two legislative houses are expected to approve an amendment that will prohibit the cultivation of transgenic corn in the country’s Constitution, a historic decision that farmers’ organizations and leaders of the national agricultural industry are applauding — though not fully celebrating.
While the constitutional change proposed by President Claudia Sheinbaum will ban nationwide production of transgenic corn in Mexico, the import and human consumption of genetically modified corn will still be permitted in the country as will the use of the herbicide glyphosate. In December, an independent panel ruled in favor of the U.S., stating that Mexico’s efforts to ban the importation of transgenic corn on human health grounds weren’t scientifically supported.
This continued import of large-scale U.S. genetically modified corn is considered to be a threat by local experts, who assert the transgenic seeds — as well as the herbicide glyphosate commonly used in their production — represent a threat to native species of the crop that have existed for thousands of years and continue to be produced by small and Indigenous farmers nationwide.
Given that Sheinbaum’s Morena Party holds a majority in both legislative houses, the constitutional amendment is likely to pass with ease in the upcoming weeks, as has been the case with several other recently approved reforms.
“The constitutional reform is a good and positive step,” said María Leticia López Zepeda, executive director of the National Association of Commercial Businesses for Farmers (ANEC). “But it doesn’t protect all the country’s corn, which to us as Mexicans is part of our identity, our biodiversity and our culture.”
Mexico is the birthplace of modern corn, and the import of genetically modified varieties from the U.S. into the country has been a long-standing point of contention among national farming groups, multinational seed producers, political parties and nongovernmental organizations. Mexico is the largest export destination for U.S. produced corn and, from January through October 2024, the U.S. sent $4.8 billion worth of corn to Mexico. Most of the U.S. corn sent to Mexico is genetically modified, and in the U.S. more than 90% of the nation’s corn is produced using the technique.
While Mexico produces white corn, it uses the U.S. imported yellow corn as feed for livestock animals and in industrial operations. A prevailing fear of many industry members in Mexico is that the genetically modified yellow corn seeds will mix with native varieties of the crop that have been cultivated for centuries by small and Indigenous farmers. There are at least 59 different varieties of corn harvested by more than 4 million farmers nationwide, and the white variety of the crop is used in many of Mexico’s staple and most emblematic foods — tortillas, tamales, dough, esquites, flour, cornmeal, soups and beverages — and is a symbol of national identity and pride.
Furthermore, experts argue that the constitutional amendment to prohibit the cultivation of transgenic corn acts solely as a formalization of an existing ban, issued in 2013, that already outlawed the practice in Mexico. They claim that the new legislation, while a positive step, comes up short in offering more protections to small and Indigenous farmers trying to keep genetically modified seeds imported from the U.S. from pollinating their land and crops.
“Unfortunately, what we’re seeing is that native varieties of corn are now very contaminated by transgenic seeds and that the spread has advanced,” said Tania Montserrat Téllez Serrano, coordinator of political impact at the civil society organization Semillas de Vida. “It is principally Indigenous communities that have conserved the diversity of our native corn and seeds, which are passed down by families and communities to harvest the crop for consumption. The risk is that the imported genetically modified seeds will be integrated into these communities and that the native varieties will be lost.”
Corn and the USMCA
Corn is one of Mexico’s most sacred crops and, while its original production dates back some 10,000 years, its emergence as a hot-button political issue between Mexico and the U.S. began 31 years ago, following the 1994 passage of the North American Free-Trade Agreement, now known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.
In 1994, Mexico began to import low-cost U.S. corn, despite that the country produced enough corn to meet national consumption and feedstock demands at that time, according to María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, former director of Mexico’s Science and Technology Council (CONACYT).
“It was at that point Mexico abandoned food self-sufficiency in favor of a competitive market,” López at ANEC said. “The rationale was that if corn production is not profitable and that it requires a lot of work to cultivate it, why don’t we just import it for cheaper?”
Both López and Álvarez-Buylla, who was the director CONACYT during the administration of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, claim that it was the adoption of these free market, neoliberal policies that allowed for genetically modified corn to enter the country, thus jeopardizing the country’s native corn varieties and the harvests of small and Indigenous farmers.
“In Mexico our Indigenous and small farming communities have demonstrated a robust resistance to these neoliberal efforts and aren’t willing to abandon cultivation of their native corn species nor self-sustenance,” Álvarez-Buylla said. “Mexico is fully capable of producing its own yellow corn to feed its livestock and meet industrial needs, and I think it would benefit Mexico to return to produce what we need and cease to import transgenic corn, which uses large quantities of agrochemicals that have negative health impacts, such as glyphosate.”
This debate — whether transgenic and genetically modified corn have negative health impacts — has been a central issue between Mexico and the U.S. in recent years, particularly in the context of the USMCA.
In 2020, former President López Obrador issued a decree that ordered a gradual phaseout of transgenic corn and glyphosate use in the country by 2024, claiming both were damaging to the health of Mexican citizens. In 2023, he issued an updated decree, which prohibited human consumption of genetically modified corn, particularly in tortillas and dough. These decrees faced resistance from the U.S. and ultimately led to a legal dispute under the USCMA.
On Dec. 20, the U.S. announced that an independent panel had ruled in its favor and that Mexico’s claims that transgenic corn has negative health impacts “are not based on science and undermine the market access that Mexico agreed to provide in the USMCA.”
“Whoever says that transgenic corn has a negative health impact is lying,” said Juan Cortina, president of Mexico’s National Agriculture Council. “We’ve been using transgenic corns in Mexico for 30 years, as well as in the rest of the world, and nothing has been proven to support claims that there is any health impact.”
Because Mexico lost the ruling, the phaseout of glyphosate and import ban on it were, in effect, also canceled.
Cortina added that glyphosate is used on many crops in large-scale harvests, such as sorghum, soybeans and berries, and that it is only contaminating when used irresponsibly or in excess.
“In the U.S., there are hundreds of thousands of hectares that use glyphosate in the production of corn, and there aren’t any health problems associated with it,” he said.
The debate over the potential health impacts of glyphosate has persisted for years. While the Environmental Protection Agency determined in 2020 that “that there are no risks of concern to human health when glyphosate is used in accordance with its current label,” in 2023, Michael Antoniou, a professor of molecular genetics and toxicology at King’s College London, wrote that “in studies on animals exposed to regulatory-relevant doses of glyphosate and commercial glyphosate-based herbicide formulations, adverse effects were observed in multiple organs and systems.”
Antoniou concluded that “the consumption of imported US GM corn at the high levels typical for Mexican citizens has the potential to result in serious negative health outcomes.
Without corn, there is no country
President Sheinbaum’s decision to seek the constitutional ban of domestically produced transgenic corn is considered by many in the industry to be a sign of things to come during her administration. The USMCA will likely be a prominent topic of debate throughout her government, particularly during a heated trade environment with U.S. President Donald Trump, who had threatened to impose 25% tariffs on all Mexican goods entering the U.S. beginning in February (Trump has since paused the tariffs for 30 days).
While Sheinbaum’s initial move to improve control over Mexico’s corn industry was seen by some as too soft or watered down, sources say it sets the stage for what will likely be continued debate over the bilateral corn relationship. Sheinbaum, similar to López Obrador, has decried neoliberal economic policy that she claims stripped Mexico of some of its most emblematic institutions and agricultural products, such as corn.
“Without corn, there is no country,” Sheinbaum said in public comments Jan. 26, repeating a popular national refrain in Spanish: Sin maíz no hay país. “Our corn has enormous genetic diversity, which is part of our culture and biological diversity. We will protect it.”