05/03/2021 / By Ethan Huff
For years, Mexico has been fighting to preserve its native corn varieties from being eliminated by the chemical lobby and replaced with genetically modified (GMO) impostors. Things were going well until the Biden regime started interfering with the process, prompting more than 80 watchdog groups to issue an open letter in opposition to the Biden agenda.
Several dozen agricultural, consumer, environmental, public health and worker groups are trying to get the attention of Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who also worked under Barack Obama, along with Trade Secretary Katherine Tai, urging them to stop harassing Mexico.
“It is completely unacceptable for U.S. public agencies to be doing the bidding of pesticide corporations like Bayer, [which] are solely concerned with maintaining their bottom-line profits,” announced Kristin Schafer, executive director of the Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA).
“We call on Secretary Vilsack and Trade Representative Tai, as key leaders in the new administration, to respect Mexico’s decision to protect both public health and the integrity of Mexican farming,” she added.
At issue is Mexico’s decision to completely phase out all use of glyphosate, one of the active ingredients in Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, along with all GMO corn – corn being a staple food crop in Mexico.
Because the United States has long promoted the use of deadly chemical agriculture, this latest decision by our neighbor to the south is upsetting to the political establishment – which includes both Democrats and Republicans, by the way.
Most other nations in the world have at least some restrictions in place concerning GMOs, recognizing that they are a threat to both environmental and human health. The U.S., meanwhile, has never met a GMO it did not instantly approve of for mass consumption.
Mexico is on the right side of history, while the U.S. is on the wrong side, as usual. Consequently, the U.S. is now acting aggressively towards Mexico for daring to reject chemical poisons that threaten to undo its entire system of natural agriculture.
“Mexico imports about 30 percent of its corn each year, overwhelmingly from the United States,” stated Timothy A. Wise from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (ITAP) earlier this year after Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador quietly announced the changes.
“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.”
López Obrador’s announcement came on New Year’s Eve, and several weeks later he doubled down on it, clarifying that the Mexican government would be phasing out all toxic GMO corn imports from the U.S. This includes corn not just for humans but also livestock.
What this means, of course, is that Mexico is moving towards being GMO and chemical free, while the U.S. is doubling down on the use of toxic agricultural poisons that have created a widespread epidemic of chronic disease. It appears as though Mexico is the place to be when it comes to clean eating.
Fernando Bejarano, director of the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) in Mexico, revealed that his group is part of a Mexican coalition called the “No Maize No Country Campaign” that aims to protect Mexico’s food sovereignty from American encroachment.
This “broad coalition of peasant organizations, nonprofit NGOs, academics, and consumers,” he says, “support the presidential decree and fight for food sovereignty with the agroecological transformation of agricultural systems that guarantee the right to produce and consume healthy, nutritious food, free of pesticides and transgenics.”
“We reject the pressure from corporations such as Bayer-Monsanto – and their CropLife trade association – which are working in both the United States and Mexico to undermine the presidential decree that phases out the use of glyphosate and transgenic corn,” Bejarano added.
U.S. government documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show that American tax dollars were used to try to lobby against Mexico’s plans to phase out GMO corn and glyphosate.
These documents claim that López Obrador’s administration is made up of “vocal anti-biotechnology activists” who are “becoming a big time problem” for the corrupt American government and its fascist partnerships with Big Chemical and Big Agriculture.
“This interference and pressure from the agrochemical industry is continuing,” the letter to Vilsack further explains.
“We strongly object to any interference by U.S. government officials or agribusiness interests in a sovereign state’s right to enact policy measures to protect the health and well-being of its people. We urge your agencies to resist and reject these ongoing efforts.”
More related news about the deadly impacts of glyphosate, GMOs and other American agricultural abominations can be found at Glyphosate.news.
Sources for this article include:
Tagged Under:
This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author
COPYRIGHT © 2017 PESTICIDES NEWS