From the Editorial Office
Newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, November 10, 2022, p. 23
Despite the resistance of agrochemical companies, the federal government advances in research to replace glyphosate and prevent transgenic corn from being used in the diet of Mexicans, as well as transgenic seeds in agricultural crops, said Elena Álvarez-Buylla, director general of the National Council of Science and Technology (Conacyt).
Opening the third forum Comprehensive biosecurity for well-beingsaid that the decree issued on December 31, 2020 by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to gradually replace the use, acquisition, distribution, promotion and import of the chemical substance called glyphosate and the agrochemicals used in our country, strengthens the agroecological transition and supports the defense of life. Places the collective good above private interests
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Conacyt and the Executive Secretariat of the Intersecretarial Commission on Biosafety and Genetically Modified Organisms (Cibiogem) considered it essential to maintain an exchange of knowledge with scientific rigor to strengthen the base that guides the public policies of the federal government in the promotion of sovereignty and security. through the gradual substitution of herbicides such as glyphosate.
Álvarez-Buylla Roces warned that in the face of actions to prevent genetically modified corn and the use of toxic herbicides from continuing to put the health of Mexicans and agrobiodiversity at risk, some conservative voices have launched false information campaigns that speak from selfishness and not from the common good
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Displaced 40% of the planting of native corn
For his part, Rafael Ortega Paczka, one of the corn scholars with the longest track record in Mexico, highlighted that 40 percent of the area planted with native corn in the country was displaced by the use of hybrid seeds.
Meanwhile, Eckart Boege Schmidt, a researcher at the National Institute of Anthropology and History, stressed that our country contributes 15.4 percent of the species of the global agri-food system; however, corporations that promote the use, acquisition, distribution, and importation of herbicides such as glyphosate maintain almost 90 percent control of the seeds.
