The Mexican government has delayed for more than two years the approval of import permits for genetically modified corn, contemplated in a planned ban even for cattle feed, accuses Juan Cortina, president of the National Agricultural Council (CNA).
The agribusiness leader asserted that the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risks (Cofepris) has extended the endorsement to 16 requests for external purchases of genetically modified organisms, including eight for corn.
“It is an issue that is getting bigger and bigger,” said Cortina. “Before this administration? Of course not,” he answered the question of whether permits had been delayed in the past.
Cofepris did not respond to a request for comment on what Cortina said, adding that the list of delayed permits related to “crop protection” was for more than 700 agricultural products or inputs.
The leader said the CNA will continue to fight in court a government plan to phase out the use of genetically modified corn and the herbicide glyphosate by 2024, following a recent setback to try to freeze the implementation of the measure, announced at the end of December. through a presidential decree.
Cortina considered that “probably” the controversy will end up being settled in the Supreme Court.
“We are fighting it in the courts and we are also fighting it in dialogue with the government,” he said, adding that there are 17 legal resources from different companies, including the German pharmaceutical Bayer, which produces glyphosate, fighting the measure.
The plan seeks to replace millions of tons of genetically modified yellow corn that Mexico imports mostly from the United States, with new local production by 2024, as well as glyphosate, a chemical widely used in agribusiness, but which environmentalists say is carcinogenic.
Imports of transgenic corn represent more than a third of the country’s national demand and mainly feed the large cattle industry in Mexico.
Difficult replacement
Cortina ruled out that the goal of replacing imported yellow corn can be met in the short term. “Although we would like to import it from another place, it does not exist, transgenic or non-transgenic. There are not those volumes for Mexico to import, much less in the efficient way that it has with the United States today,” he stressed.
He also contradicted the confirmation that US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said he received from his Mexican counterpart that the ban would not apply to GM corn for cattle feed. Cortina said the ban will be used without exceptions.
“Precisely what is delicate about this issue is that it is applied to livestock feed. That is where the vast majority of the 17 million tons that are imported is located,” he said.
At the beginning of the year, the Mexican undersecretary of Agriculture and an architect of the decree, Víctor Suárez, said that transgenic corn and glyphosate are too dangerous and that local production and sustainable “agroecological” practices should be prioritized.
Cortina argued that decades of scientific research have shown that both GM corn and glyphosate are safe and warned of “enormous damage” to trade relations with the United States if ideological positions prevail over scientific evidence.
While Mexico’s largest scientific council, Conacyt, has issued guidance on how glyphosate imports will be reduced this year, Cortina says no such guidance has been provided for transgenic corn.
