MCGA urges reversal of Mexico GM corn ban
The Minnesota Corn Growers Association (MCGA) supports calls by the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) for Mexico to reverse a proposed ban on genetically modified (GM) corn.
In 2020, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated that his country would phase out GM corn and the use of herbicide glyphosate by 2024. Mexico currently imports millions of metric tons of U.S. corn each year, including corn from Minnesota.
Almost all U.S. corn is genetically modified. Genetic modification ensures that corn can withstand damaging pests, allowing farmers to maximize yields while minimizing inputs and costs.
The efforts against GM corn by López Obrador are based on unfounded concerns about GM corn and the use of essential herbicides by American farmers.
“Any interruption to corn exports to Mexico will have a significant impact on this state and its growers,” MCGA President Richard Syverson said in a statement.
Syverson noted that Mexico’s demands are not only a non-starter, but they would take years of preparation and transition time to enact.
“Corn growers are busy right now booking their bags of seed for spring 2023 planting, meaning that what we purchase this fall will be in grain channels as late as 2025,” he said. “Much of that seed corn is and will continue to be biotech corn that empowers us to conserve the soil and reduce insecticide use.”
MCGA and NCGA are calling on the Biden administration’s U.S. Trade Representative to launch a formal bilateral consultation under USMCA. Such a move would allow for extensive debate on the matter and mediation.
“We’re now looking to the Biden administration to intervene to ensure that corn exports to Mexico don’t come to a sudden stop,” NCGA President Tom Haag, who farms in Eden Valley, wrote in an opinion piece published over the weekend in The Hill.
“We need USTR to act soon and the problem to be resolved quickly, because while some might think the clock is ticking, in reality, we’re already out of time.”
