In his move to ban Monsanto/Bayer’s glyphosate, “Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador quietly rocked the agribusiness world with his New Year’s Eve decree,” Timothy A. Wise of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) noted earlier this year. “His administration sent an even stronger aftershock two weeks later, clarifying that the government would also phase out GM corn imports in three years and the ban would include not just corn for human consumption but yellow corn destined primarily for livestock.” 

Since then, U.S. corporate agribusiness and proponents of so-called Free Trade have been lobbying the Biden administration to lean on Mexican President López Obrador to backtrack on his popular decision to kick GMOs and the toxic chemicals that go along with them out of Mexico.

OCA’s Mexico sister organization, Via Organica, has worked hard for over a decade, along with its 300 other partner organizations in the coalition Sin Maiz, No Hay Pais (“Without Corn there is no country”) to ban GMOs and glyphosate south of the border.

“Mexico imports about 30% of its corn each year, overwhelmingly from the United States,” Wise added. “Almost all of that is yellow corn for animal feed and industrial uses. López Obrador’s commitment to reducing and, by 2024, eliminating such imports reflects his administration’s plan to ramp up Mexican production as part of the campaign to increase self-sufficiency in corn and other key food crops.” 

Read more: 80 Groups Blast US Interference in Mexico’s Phaseout of Glyphosate and GM Corn