Mexico Must Stand up to Agribusiness Oligopolies on GM Corn Ban

U.S. and Canadian civil society groups are supporting the successful efforts of the “Sin Maíz No Hay País” (“Without Corn There’s No Country”) campaign to protect cultural heritage and biodiversity by preventing the planting of GM corn and the use of the herbicide glyphosate over potential risks to human health, the environment, and the country’s biocultural diversity. In one form of solidarity, they’ve submitted a series of statements to the trade dispute process.

As Karen Hansen-Kuhn of the U.S.-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy puts it, “whether or not the dispute panel accepts these statements, the range of topics covered will enrich the public debate on how trade rules could limit or enable sustainable solutions that promote public health, human rights, and economic opportunities.”

The organizations’ statements emphasize the insufficient research on the safety of GM corn for human consumption and the risks of glyphosate. They also emphasize the contradiction between the U.S. claim against Mexico and other key provisions of the treaty, which the United States should not be treating as mere decorations.

For example, Article 32.5 of the USMCA states that the treaty does not prevent a party from adopting or maintaining a measure that it deems necessary to comply with its legal obligations to indigenous peoples, as well as protections for biological diversity in the chapter on the environment.

The statements emphasize the cultural and environmental risks of GM corn’s proliferation in Mexico, considering the diversity of over 59 native corn varieties that indigenous peoples have constantly labored to diversify and adapt. They explain that the Mexican policy does not discriminate against U.S. producers, and in fact, these producers are profiting from increased exports of non-GM corn to Mexico.

A support statement led by Rick Arnold of the Council of Canadians — a network of tens of thousands of members from coast to coast and supported by Common Frontiers, a broad network of Canadian organizations — critiques the cozy relationship between their own government and large agribusinesses.

“As Canada joins the U.S. in challenging Mexico to stop its planned phase-out of genetically modified corn for human consumption,” they write, “a too-close collaboration between federal government departments and the biotechnology industry has been exposed […] CropLife Canada was instrumental in Canada’s new decision to remove regulation from many coming gene-edited GMOs.”

Canadian organizations demand that their government support Mexico in its efforts to gradually eliminate the importation of GM corn, and are calling upon the USMCA dispute panel to rule in favor of protecting health, small farmers, and environmental well-being, as Mexico has done for several millennia.

Trinational civil society organizations warned 30 years ago that the free trade model could destroy age-old farming traditions. Today they are demanding that Mexico stand up to the pressure of the agribusiness oligopolies and stop what could be the final blow to Mexican food culture. Long live international solidarity.

Adapted from the original published in Spanish in La Jornada and translated by Liam Crisan.