President Claudia Sheinbaum sent to the Chamber of Representatives an initiative on the conservation and protection of native corn that prohibits the cultivation of transgenic corn in Mexico, this is in the context of Mexico’s defeat in a T-MEC panel that determined that the ban decreed by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador violates the terms of the free trade agreement.
According to the initiative, Mexico is home to the widest diversity of corn cultivation, represented by 59 races of native corn and its wild relatives (Teosintles and grasses of the genus tripsacum), so the president justifies the initiative in the responsibility of the State to safeguard said diversity and guarantee its permanence for future generations.
“Corn is an element of national identity whose cultivation must be free of transgenics, prioritizing its ecological management,” is the portion proposed to be added to Article 4 of the Mexican Constitution.
The reform also establishes the obligation of the state to guarantee the cultivation of transgenic-free corn in the national territory.
“The state will promote the conditions for comprehensive rural development, to generate employment and guarantee the well-being of the rural population, and incorporation into national development, will promote agricultural and forestry activity for the optimal use of land free of crops and seeds for planting transgenic corn,” reads the portion added to article 27 of the Carta Magna.
Former President López Obrador imposed the ban on transgenic corn through a decree published in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) on February 13, 2023, which was controversial in the T-MEC panel that Mexico ultimately lost.
On February 5, 2024, the former president presented an initiative to declare Mexico “free of genetically modified corn crops” and the Constitutional Points Commission of the last legislature approved the reform on August 18, 2024, however, it was sent to the freezer.
In line with the initiative, Germany and Italy have taken steps to ban genetically modified corn for environmental reasons, the former in 2009 and the latter in 2013. Countries such as India and Ecuador have also passed laws or moratoriums to prohibit the cultivation of certain genetically modified foods.
Source: OEM
