Serbian Animals Voice (SAV)

Mexico proceeds with plan to replace 16mn tonnes of GM corn with homegrown variety
Deputy minister describes GM corn and glyphosate, which is also being banned, as ‘undesirable and unnecessary’

The federal government will go ahead with its plan to stop importing genetically modified (GM) corn and replace it with homegrown maize, according to Deputy Agriculture Minister Víctor Suárez.

Suárez: Sustainable “agro-ecological” practices must take priority.

The official also told the news agency Reuters that the government is sticking to its plan to ban glyphosate, a controversial herbicide.

The government announced by executive order on the final day of 2020 that it aims to replace approximately 16 million tonnes of yellow corn imports – most of which comes from the United States and almost all of which is GM corn – with new, local production by 2024, the final year of the current administration’s six-year term.

The imports account for more than a third of Mexican demand for corn and are mostly used as livestock fodder.

Replacing the imports by 2024 with homegrown corn would require an almost 60% increase over current domestic production levels.

ARCHIV – Protesters from 14.09.2016) +++(c) dpa – Bildfunk+++

Suárez, an agronomist, a long-term ally of President López Obrador, and a key architect of the executive order, told Reuters that GM corn and glyphosate, the active ingredient in the Monsanto herbicide Roundup, are too dangerous to be permitted long term in Mexico.

He said that Mexican agricultural production and sustainable “agro-ecological” practices must take priority.

“We are moving in this direction, and this must be clear: no one should think that they can bet that this decree will not be implemented,” Suárez said.

The deputy minister cited studies that have linked glyphosate to cancer and found that it is harmful to bees and other pollinators.

He also claimed that GM corn contaminates native strains of the grain that have long been cultivated in Mexico.

But Suárez described GM corn, and glyphosate, as “undesirable and unnecessary,” saying that they are not needed to attain the government’s goal of self-sufficiency in food production.

“We have to put the right to life, the right to health, the right to a healthy environment ahead of economic and business interests,” he said.

For more…at https://worldanimalsvoice.com/2021/03/29/mexico-gm-corn-and-glyphosate-are-undesirable-and-unnecessary-great/#more-40655

An I mean…The reality in North America and Asia shows that Monsanto’s promises are nothing but promises:

– Increase in yields: No result!

– Reduced use of pesticides: no result!

– Successful fight against poverty: No result!

– Successful fight against hunger: No result!

In many cases the opposite was even the case: the yields were devastatingly low (sometimes half of the normal yield and, of course, hunger and poverty as a result.

The poverty of farmers in the third or emerging countries was even increased as a result of the expensive seeds (yes must be bought expensive new every year with all the specialty products from Monsanto).

In many cases even more pesticides (of course, Monsanto’s own expensive special products) were necessary, which further increases the costs, and increases poverty and hunger …

In fact, en masse people in South America who live in the vicinity of fields that are sprayed with insecticides or herbicides (often from airplanes) become sick.

There is also a significant relationship between these toxins and malformations and stillbirths in fetuses. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237710660_Malformaciones_Congenitas_Asociadas_a_Agrotoxicos)

The main culprit here is solely the industry that releases these toxins, including unscrupulous politicians who do not want to go out of business because of trivialities like human suffering

Thank you señor Sánchez for your courageous and right decision.

If we allow the world market leaders in pesticide production, namely Monsanto, Dow, and DuPont from the USA, Syngenta from Switzerland or Bayer and BASF from Germany, to spray their poisonous liquor on the fields as before, then it is “murder on installments”.

My best regards to all, Venus

Filed under: GENERAL NEWS - International / National / Regional |