By: Marte Nicolás Vega Román, president of CAADES
Recently, the President-Elect, Claudia Sheimbaunannounced the first appointments from his cabinetwithin them is the Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development, Julio Berdegué Sacristán. That same day, this Secretary of Agriculture designated, made his first statement around Mexico’s agricultural policy, highlighting two fundamental points; Strengthening the country’s food security and continue with the policy of ban on the use of genetically modified corn for human consumptionclarifying that in Mexico Currently, national production is mainly white corn non-transgenic and we supply 100 percent of the human consumption.
It is important to remember that in the decree of December 31, 2020, in addition to the actions to replace the use of glyphosate with precautionary criteria, this decree also established, in the sixth article, the bases for revoking the permits of genetically modified cornwithout clarifying whether it was livestock use or of human consumption.
The above generated great controversy and concern, especially for United States producers who export to the world and have Mexico as their main customer. For this reason, the Federal Government decided to modify this decree on February 13, 2023, where it was clarified that the restriction on GMOs was focused on corn for human consumption, which expired on March 31, 2024. In this same, It was also recommended to gradually replace imported corn for animal consumption with national production.
With the understanding that this last part of the decree is unviable since Mexico, in recent years, instead of increasing its corn production, has decreased, which has caused imports of yellow corn to increase, mainly from the United States and Brazil. levels of almost 20 million tons in 2022 and 23 million are estimated for this year, which means around 50 percent of its total consumption.
Upon expiration of the decree, the Government of Mexico declared the non-prohibition of glyphosate, as long as a viable substitute was not found, without setting a date. Likewise, the prohibition of transgenic corn for human consumption remained as a policy, taking as a reference that currently Mexico faces a controversy with the United States and Canada on this issue within the framework of the T-MEC and it is expected that in the last months of this year there will be a final resolution on this matter.
The panel will determine the course of Mexico’s policy on imports of genetically modified corn for various uses based on the outcome of this dispute.
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