Environmental groups on Tuesday accused the Biden administration of putting the profits of big agribusiness over public health and critical pollinators by attempting to obstruct the Mexican government’s ongoing push to ban genetically engineered corn. “The U.S.’s shameful efforts to strong-arm Mexico into accepting GE corn it has rejected is nothing short of 21st-century imperialism,” Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the U.S.-based Center for Biological Diversity. “Our government is working tirelessly to pad the multibillion-dollar profits of domestic agribusiness corporations by pushing GE corn, even though our glyphosate-drenched GE cornfields are playing an outsized role in driving catastrophic declines in vital pollinator populations.”
The group’s statement came after Mexico issued a new decree earlier this week that scraps the country’s original January 2024 deadline to halt imports of GMO corn for livestock feed and industrial use, a move widely seen as a concession to the U.S., which has been pressuring its southern neighbor to drop the ban since Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) first announced it in 2020. But Mexico—the largest destination for U.S. corn exports—reiterated its intention to prohibit GE corn for human consumption by 2024 in its latest decree. Mexico is also aiming to ban imports and use of glyphosate, a cancer-linked chemical that is often sprayed on genetically engineered corn.
— source commondreams.org | Feb 15, 2023