With reform, Sheinbaum seeks shielding corn races

Of the writing

La Jornada newspaper
Monday, January 27, 2025, p. 3

With the constitutional reform initiative sent to the Congress of the Union to protect corn and prohibit the planting of genetically modified seeds, it seeks to define that food as part of the national identity and establish that Mexico is free of transgenicsPresident Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo said.

Through a video recorded yesterday in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, and that spread on her social networks, the president referred to the proposal sent from Thursday to the Chamber of Deputies.

He explained that with the modifications the fourth and twenty -seventh articles of the Constitution, it is proposed to define corn as part of the National Identity, (as a) element of the country and at the same time the prohibition that transgenic corn is sown in our territory and ensure that cultivation is through agroecological techniques.

By expressing that Without corn, there is no countryhe explained that the 59 varieties of this food that until now are known in national territory, They are fundamental elements of our identity, of our history, of our people.

After remembering that it is a food from Mesoamerica, he stressed that it was in this region where, from domesticating wild plants such as Teocintle, the Wonderful plant of corn, of which We feed on Mexicans, and also a good part of the world. This seed has enormous diversity, varieties in its genes, which are part of our culture and biological plurality; is what we are protecting.

Since December, after an international panel determined that Mexico must reverse the presidential decree on transgenic corn so as not to violate the Trade Agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC), the head of the federal executive urged legislators to support the initiative to prohibit the use of transgenics.