Mexican president assured Congress will ban planting GM corn in 2025

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum expects Congress to approve a ban early subsequent yr on planting genetically modified corn within the nation, she mentioned on Saturday.

Sheinbaum’s announcement comes a day after a trade-dispute panel dominated Mexico’s restrictions on U.S. exports of GM corn violate the USMCA commerce settlement.

“With the assistance of Mexico’s Congress, we’re going to reverse this decision as a result of very quickly, in February, they’re going to legislate, I’m positive, which you could’t plant genetically modified corn,”  Sheinbaum mentioned at a public occasion. Mexico’s Congress is dominated by the ruling occasion.

“We should shield Mexico’s biodiversity in our nation … with out corn there isn’t a nation.”

Such a ban could enhance Mexican provides of non-GM corn however not forestall imports of GM varieties, nonetheless.

A GM crop accommodates genetic materials that’s not naturally discovered within the plant, for instance to higher shield towards illness. Farmers have extensively adopted such crops in some international locations reminiscent of the USA, however critics say their security for human well being and the atmosphere is unproven.

The deadlock escalated when the U.S. authorities referred to as on a dispute decision panel to overturn Mexico’s February 2023 presidential decree that banned using GM corn to make tortillas and dough.

The decree additionally advocated for replacements in industrial manufacturing for human consumption and animal feed.

Mexico’s financial system and agriculture ministries mentioned in a joint assertion that they disagreed with the ruling, however would respect the choice. The businesses later mentioned the panel’s report referred completely to commerce between Mexico and the USA.

Mexico, the birthplace of recent corn, bans GM corn for worry it may contaminate native kinds of the grain. But the nation is the biggest international purchaser of U.S.-grown yellow corn, virtually all of which is genetically modified.

The Mexican authorities expects native patrons to import a report 22.3 million metric tons throughout the 2023/24 crop season.

(Report by Diego Oré; Writing by Alexander Villegas; Enhancing by Rod Nickel)