Mexico starts planting GM corn amid protests

 

 

Private companies in Mexico have begun the first legal plantings of GM corn despite the protests of anti-GM groups.

 

Environmentalists and farm groups have filed an appeal with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, saying the Mexican government has been unwilling or unable to halt the illicit spread of GM crops in Mexico.

 

They say the government should not authorise legal plantings until it investigates contamination from past, illegal biotech planting.

 

The Agriculture Department replied in a letter that planting has begun on some of the two dozen experimental plots granted approval late last year. They were mostly in Sinaloa and Sonora, northern states that government studies say are likely outside corn's ''birthplace'' region in central Mexico. The planting permits were granted for a relatively small total area of about 13 hectares split evenly between Dow AgroScience/PHI Mexico and Monsanto.

 

Anti-GM groups say modified genes could spread and contaminate native varieties. GM supporters say the genetic contamination theory has been overblown and that such crops can be safely planted in areas where corn is not native. Current law allows only carefully controlled planting in areas far from the central highlands, until the risk can be assessed.