Monsanto didn’t have a lot to be grateful for over the Thanksgiving weekend, at least not in Mexico.
Mexico’s agriculture sanitation authority, SENASICA, revoked the Biotech giant’s permit to commercialize genetically modified soy in seven Mexican states.
To make matters worse, a Mexican court upheld a ban on the planting of GMO corn in Mexico.
The GMO soy permit was revoked because transgenic Monsanto soy was detected in areas where cultivation was not authorized. The revocation applies to the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Quintana Roo, Veracruz and Yucatán.
The ruling to keep the GMO corn ban in place is the latest chapter of a more than four-year old battle to protect Mexico’s hundreds of native corn varieties.
The case pits powerful agroindustrial corporations like Monsanto, Bayer, Pioneer, DuPont, Syngenta and Dow AgroSciences, Mexican governmental entities such as the Secretariat of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) and the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT) against the Colectividad del Maíz, a broad farmers, indigenous and human right groups, scientists, activists, lawyers, artists and civil society organizations.
The latest ruling kicks the decision up to the Supreme Court. OCA’s Mexico City-based counterpart, Asociación de Consumidores Orgánicos, has been an active member of the Colectividad from the beginning, and will continue to fight for a permanent ban on GMO corn in Mexico, in order to protect integrity and diversity of Mexico’s corn and its connection with the country’s entire culture.
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