08/November/21

 

Mexico is battling to revitalize indigenous corn, while the US seeks to stop the spread of a movement against GM food and agrichemicals. Mexico, the genetic origin of maize, now buys mainly genetically modified maize from the giant farms of the US. But the left-leaning president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is now seeking to turn back that tide of US products, as part of a broader push to revive national industries and support rural indigenous communities. In a declaration of war against Big Agri, he pledged last New Year's Eve to phase out GM corn by 2024, along with the ubiquitous pesticide glyphosate that is often sprayed on maize. Politico

 

 

The joint response of 58 NGOs (including GMWatch, which helped draft the response) to the EU Commission criticising its plans to deregulate gene editing is featured in a news article published by Euractiv. The article notes that the "NGOs criticised an approach that was 'biased from the start'." The article quotes the NGO response as saying, “The Commission puts too much faith in the unverifiable promises of the industry" and as accusing the Commission of “uncritically following the GMO industry’s ‘wish list’ for deregulation". The NGOs also warn that the Commission ignores the scientific data, which indicates the risks posed by new GM techniques. For example, they said genetic modification could create unintended mutations with “unpredictable consequences, including potentially unexpected toxicity or allergenicity". GMWatch comment on article in Euractiv