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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Monday, May 13, 2024
There aren’t any compromises that the Biden administration is willing to make when it comes to Mexico’s effort to curtail its imports of genetically modified corn from the U.S., says Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
The Biden administration is seeking new dispute settlement consultations with Canada to expand the scope of its challenge to restrictions on U.S. dairy exports.
U.S. and Mexican government officials have been meeting over Mexico’s plan to ban on genetically modified corn, but the National Corn Growers Association says time is running out and the Biden administration needs to take action soon.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador may have thought he was offering a reasonable compromise when he told U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that Mexico would remain open to importing genetically modified feed corn, but American farmers don’t see it that way.
Mexico is willing to make a deal to annually exempt U.S. feed corn from a coming ban on genetically modified corn, but no deal is being considered on white corn for direct human consumption, according to a statement issued by the office of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack personally warned Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador against banning genetically modified corn and later said the Biden administration expects to receive a proposal soon from Mexico on how to “engage in dialogue assuring the safety of biotechnology products.”
The U.S. corn sector has been adamant that it cannot easily or quickly shift to producing non-GMO corn to comply with an upcoming Mexican ban, but Brazilian and Argentine farmers are also telling Mexico that it’s mistaken if it thinks it can rely on them to make up for the coming loss of U.S. supplies.
Mexico has not publicly ruled on genetically modified plant traits in the four years since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took power, but the country’s health regulator Cofepris has been quietly approving and rejecting traits with an apparent bias against glyphosate-resistant corn seeds, according to U.S. government and industry sources.
