December 21, 2007

 

Tax-free US corn imports force GMO debate in Mexico

 

 

Cheap US corn will flood into Mexico in January when trade barriers are lifted, pitting local farmers against each other in protecting the crop that has fed Mexico for thousands of years.

 

Mexico is to scrap import duties of US corn on January 1, under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, in a move that will allow the world's No. 1 producer to expand its market in the country that claims to have discovered corn.

 

Mexican growers are debating whether to turn to genetically modified strains of corn to resist the US challenge, or to mechanise production but keep local corn strains GMO-free.

 

Either way, millions of Mexican farmers, many of them living just above subsistence, will struggle to compete with heavily subsidized US corn despite high international corn prices.

 

Carlos Salazar the head of a national corn growers' association said all inequalities have left Mexican farmers unprepared for the opening. Salazar also works with farmers in the eastern town of San Salvador El Seco, where flat fields of corn and cactus stretch for miles below three snow-capped volcanoes.

 

Corn tariffs have gradually been phased out since the trade deal was implemented in 1994, and imports of yellow corn from the United States to Mexico have skyrocketed by about 240 percent compared to the decade before NAFTA. Mexico imported over 7 million tonnes of US yellow corn in 2006.

 

Imported yellow corn, mostly used for animal feed, now accounts for close to 35 percent of local consumption and is likely to increase next year.

 

The biggest worry for Mexican farmers is that zero barriers could give US producers incentives to grow more white corn, Mexico's principal crop, which is used to make tortillas and other famed foods.

 

Those who want to introduce bioengineered corn in Mexico appear to be gaining an upper hand.

 

A law allowing experimental planting of genetically-modified strains in northern Mexico was passed two years ago but was never signed. Agriculture Minister Alberto Cardenas said this week the law could go into effect in a matter of weeks.

 

Corn yields in the United States can be more than three times those in Mexico, according to Mexican growers.

 

The agriculture ministry says within five to ten years, there will be drought resistant corn and Mexico should catch up with the planting or "be down the drain."

 

About half of US yellow corn sent to Mexico comes from genetically modified seeds. Mexico's agriculture minister reckons GMO seeds smuggled in from the United States are already being planted in northern Mexican states.

 

But some farmers worry introducing that GMO seeds could contaminate hundreds of wild blue, red and multicoloured corn varieties planted for centuries in Mexico.

 

However the debate plays out, the radical changes to the landscape of rural Mexico are already well underway.

 

Some 2 million farm jobs have been lost since NAFTA was signed, according to Mexico's National Employment Survey. Many farmers around San Salvador El Seco have left the land and emigrated.