“With the help of the Mexican Congress we are going to turn this resolution around because very soon, in February, they are going to legislate, I am sure, that transgenic corn cannot be planted,” Sheinbaum said at a public event.
“We must protect the biodiversity of Mexico in our country (…) without corn there is no country,” he added.
The impasse escalated when the US government invoked a dispute resolution panel to overturn the February 2023 presidential decree that banned the use of genetically modified corn to make tortillas and dough, and advocated for its substitution in industrial production intended for consumption. human and animal food.
Mexico’s Ministries of Economy and Agriculture said in a joint statement that they did not agree with the ruling, but would respect the decision. Later, the agencies assured that the panel’s report referred “exclusively” to trade between Mexico and the United States.
Mexico, the birthplace of modern corn, bans genetically modified corn for fear that it will contaminate native varieties of the grain. However, the country is the largest foreign buyer of American-grown yellow corn, almost all of which is genetically modified.
Mexico’s government expects local buyers to import a record 22.3 million metric tons during the 2023/24 agricultural season.
