Will Mexicans lose the tasty tortillas they have eaten for centuries?

Caryn Lipson

December 15, 2023

If you want an authentic tortilla experience you must go to Mexico where they are made with native varieties of non-GMO corn. As explained during an NPR episode of “All Things Considered” about Mexico’s ban on tortillas made with GMO corn, traditionally handmade tortillas come in various colors and taste different than the ones in the supermarket. At the Mexico City restaurant Los Danzantes that NPR correspondent Eyder Peralta visited the day of the program, “[a] cook [was] making tortillas from a corn that has been produced by a single family for hundreds of years. She makes a little ball of dough and, almost in one movement, presses it into a circle and throws it onto a hot skillet.”

Peralta, translating for Chef Alejandro Pinon, said, “She's like a finely-tuned watch.” Peralta continues, “She flips the corn tortilla, and it puffs up with steam. Today they're a delicate teal color. Pinon takes a fresh tortilla, dashes it with some salt."

"This is a very Mexican taste," [Pinon] says, "a very ancient taste." And he's right. They're not the yellow tortillas you get at the supermarket. The corn melts in your mouth. It's delicious.

Just reading about these tortillas may make you hungry enough to consider hopping on a plane to Mexico to experience the difference for yourself. You may need to make that trip sooner rather than later, however, if you want to be sure to experience that authentic taste. In addition to Pinon, Peralta was with El Colegio de Mexico professor Antonio Nunez Naude who has studied the corn market for decades, to discuss the effect of the free trade agreement between Mexico, the US, and Canada on Mexico’s own corn products.

As Peralta and Nunez Naude discussed – NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) signed in 1994 between Mexico, the United States, and Canada served to encourage Mexican farmers’ adoption of US yellow corn, a hardier variety that provided more corn flour. This resulted in less biodiverse Mexican corn as farmers grew fewer varieties. Now a new agreement will allow for transgenic corn, as well.

The new agreement is the USMCA (United States Mexico and Canada Agreement) which was developed under President Trump, who had initially wanted to scrap NAFTA altogether. It has brought both blessing and trouble for Mexico, as DTB AgriTrade partner Ben Conner writing for the Congressionally chartered Wilson Center explained. Mexico’s increased export of avocados, tomatoes, and horticultural products has yielded an economic bonanza while the biotechnology provision of the new agreement is creating serious problems for Mexico which wants to keep its corn biodiverse and its citizens healthy.

“Ironically,” Conner stated, “the main win for U.S. crop farmers in the agreement – besides preserving duty-free access to Mexico – was the setting of “unprecedented standards for agricultural biotechnology.” Ninety percent of the corn the US exports, he pointed out, is GMO. The USMCA was signed by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) predecessor one day before AMLO took office.

From the “UNITED STATES–MEXICO–CANADA TRADE FACT SHEET Strengthening North American Trade in Agriculture”:

Key Achievement: Setting Unprecedented Standards for Agricultural Biotechnology

For the first time, the agreement specifically addresses agricultural biotechnology to support 21^st-Century innovations in agriculture. The text covers all biotechnologies, including new technologies such as gene editing, whereas the Trans-Pacific Partnership text covered only traditional rDNA technology. Specifically, the United States, Mexico, and Canada have agreed to provisions to enhance information exchange and cooperation on agricultural biotechnology trade-related matters.

AMLO has been trying to keep GMO corn and glyphosate out of Mexico citing health reasons, the country’s need for food sovereignty and security, and the imperative of maintaining agricultural diversity which is Mexico’s heritage. The United States has been pushing back with all its corporate might.

Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law Professor Ernesto Hernández-López cited initial trade panel filings which reveal that the U.S. supports agribusiness, which includes chemical and biotech companies while neglecting the real health problems caused by glyphosate and other worrying findings about GMOs.

The trade panel is supposed to rule on the dispute between Mexico and the U.S. He believes Mexico stands on solid ground regarding AMLO’s decree limiting GMO corn imports, their impact, and the real risks he wants to avoid. If the panel forces GMOs then the USMCA agreement, he says, is really just about corporate profits and “nothing short of 21st-century imperialism.” Hernández-López believes that Mexico’s corn battle is part of a larger battle for making international trade more fair and sustainable.

Perhaps, though, what Mexico is really fighting for is the opportunity for a country’s citizens to determine their own destiny. The U.S., as Frontline News has highlighted here, here, and here, has been captured by Big Agra and Big Pharma. For their own sake, it is important that American citizens and others around the world pay close attention to Mexico’s fight to defeat corporatism.

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