Food Tank, Jan. 3, 2023 (A version of this article appears in Spanish in La Jornada del Campo.)
Negotiations between the United States and Mexican governments continue over Mexico’s planned phaseout of imports of genetically modified corn, first announced in a presidential decree two years ago. A high-level Mexican delegation visited Washington December 16, offering to delay the January 2024 deadline to 2025, and maybe beyond, for feed corn. Feed corn represents most U.S. exports. Negotiations are set to resume when President Biden visits Mexico for a January 9-10 presidential summit that will also include Canada’s Justin Trudeau.
The looming trade conflict was given new urgency by a September economic modeling study from consulting firm World Perspectives, Inc. (WPI), which claimed to show catastrophic impacts on U.S. and Canadian farmers and on Mexico’s own food security. It projected massive price spikes, market chaos, and billions of dollars of lost output for U.S. corn farmers. Mexico would see its economic output fall by US$19.39 billion, with an annual loss of 56,958 jobs, reducing labor income by US$2.99 billion.
Don’t believe a word of it. The study, attributed to a “coalition of leading food and agriculture industry stakeholders in both Mexico and the United States,” was actually commissioned by CropLife, the biotech trade association and greatly overstates the impacts of the ban.
(read the full article on Food Tank)