Globalist free trade agreement to destroy Mexican farms?

The USMCA trade agreement has become a thorn in the side of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. 

Mexico is finding it difficult to manage its domestic agriculture policy as a result of the international treaty, unable to assert its rights to food security, and unable to advance a ban on GMO corn and glyphosate herbicide, which it maintains are dangerous, and which may wipe out corn farmers. 

In this installment, we examine López Obrador’s motivation in opposing imports.

Mexico – the birthplace of corn

Mexico is the original home of corn cultivation with numerous variations, called landraces, growing throughout the country.

Urging support for Mexico in its stand against the demands that the country accept GMO corn imports (see the image at right which explains in detail the two types of genetic modifications that have been made to corn and soy), the Non-GMO Project related that Mexico is a “repository of living wealth”; its native landraces carry crucial traits such as adaptation to various climates and adverse growing conditions.[fn]“Stand With Mexico for Food Sovereignty & Their Right to Restrict GMO Corn.” The Non-GMO Project - Everyone Deserves an Informed Choice, 7 Mar. 2023, https://www.nongmoproject.org/blog/mexico-sign-on-letter/ [/fn] 

Mexico is the birthplace of corn. Indigenous farmers and seed breeders domesticated the grain there 9,000 years ago. The abundance handed down to us results directly from their skill and labor. Today, Mexico is a repository of living wealth. Native corn landraces flourish there, carrying crucial traits such as adaptation to climate instability, adverse growing conditions and drought. Preventing genetic pollution and preserving valuable traits is essential for developing new, local corn varieties in a changing climate to ensure global food security for future generations.

Mexican corn products shockingly full of GMOs

Mexico’s heritage is closely associated with corn and its growth is ubiquitous in the country. Consequently, Mexicans eat a lot more corn daily than people elsewhere, making the purity and safety of its corn significant to a degree not shared by other nations. This was highlighted in an article IATP (Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy) senior advisor Timothy A. Wise wrote shortly after López Obrador’s first decree and the discovery of emails between the U.S. government and industry officials[fn]Wise, Timothy. “Mexico to Ban Glyphosate, GM Corn: Presidential Decree Comes Despite Intense Pressure from Industry, US Authorities.” Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 24 Feb. 2021, https://www.iatp.org/blog/202102/mexico-ban-glyphosate-gm-corn [/fn] in which he explained that most of Mexico's tortillas and many common corn-based foods already contain GM corn sequences: 

[E]ven though most imported U.S. corn is used for animal feed, not direct human consumption, a study carried out by María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, now head of CONAHCYT, the government’s leading scientific body, documented the presence of GM corn sequences in many of Mexico’s most common foods. Some 90% of tortillas and 82% of other common corn-based foods contained GM corn. Mexico needs to be especially cautious . . . because corn is so widely consumed, with Mexicans on average eating one pound of corn a day, one of the highest consumption levels in the world.

Corn dumping under NAFTA hurt Mexican farmers and domestic food production

Undersecretary of Food Self-Sufficiency for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Víctor Suárez Carrera, in an interview with Timothy Wise,[fn]Wise, Timothy. “Stop Cheapening Mexico’s White and Native Corn.” Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 28 Sept. 2023, https://www.iatp.org/stop-cheapening-mexicos-white-native-corn [/fn] explained that before NAFTA was signed in 1994 Mexico had imported almost no corn, meeting its needs through domestic production. However, with NAFTA came U.S. dumping in Mexico of agricultural products at prices below cost that, along with neoliberal government policies, resulted in Mexico importing over 17.7 million tons of corn by 2021.

The result, he shared, was that rural Mexican farms were decimated, government support was going to large industrial farms, and the country could no longer feed itself without importing a majority of its grains. Mexico’s food security was lost. López Obrador, he said, promised to reverse this trajectory during his 2018 campaign for the presidency, supporting small and medium-sized farms and banning GMO corn and the herbicide glyphosate (Bayer/Monsanto's Roundup). 

GM corn ruinous to native crops

When the planting of GM corn was allowed in Mexico, farmers found their corn to be polluted by GM corn pollen, affecting the purity of their native varieties. Contaminated corn, they also found, was disfigured.[fn]Wise, Timothy A. “Monsanto Invades Corn’s Garden of Eden in Mexico.” Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food, New Press, New York, NY, 2019, pp. 178–180, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e0a3c609e9c070f246c7788/t/
63eaaad5e40b6065fe7664af/1676323553024/TWiseEatingTomorrowCh7.pdf [/fn] In 2014 a citizen’s group got an injunction banning the growing of GMO crops, a practice previously allowed to the chemical manufacturers. Unfortunately, a judge recently overturned the ruling, despite new evidence of uncontrolled GM contamination.[fn]Wise, Timothy. “Mexico’s Corn Defenders Honored with Environmental Prize.” Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, 20 Oct. 2023, www.iatp.org/mexicos-corn-defenders-honored-environmental-prize [/fn]

Scientific studies to prove GMO dangers

What are the scientific studies that substantiate López Obrador's claim that GM corn is unsafe to consume? Frontline News will highlight some of them in the next installment.