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glyphosate
What a Ruling Against Mexico’s GMO Corn Ban Could Mean for the Future of the USMCA
The pro-U.S. ruling raises questions about the fairness of tri-national trade agreement itself, which has now legitimized the use of the agreement’s dispute process to challenge a domestic policy that barely affected trade.
Dec 29, 2024
A tribunal of trade arbitrators has ruled in favor of the United States in its complaint that Mexico’s restrictions on genetically modified corn violate the terms of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, or USMCA. The long-awaited ruling in the 16-month trade dispute is unlikely to settle the questions raised by Mexico about the safety of consuming GM corn and its associated herbicide.
Indeed, the pro-U.S. ruling raises questions about the fairness of the USMCA itself, which has now legitimized the use of the agreement’s dispute process to challenge a domestic policy that barely affected trade. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is now openly threatening Mexico with 25% tariffs on all Mexican exports, a blatant violation of the USMCA that Trump himself renegotiated and signed in 2018. Yet the treaty appears impotent to challenge such unilateral U.S. trade measures just as its tribunal slaps Mexico’s hand for its public health policies.
According to the U.S. government, the final report from the tribunal, announced December 20, ruled that “Mexico’s measures are not based on science and undermine the market access that Mexico agreed to provide in the USMCA.” In fact, the trade panel’s ruling was more limited, demanding that Mexico comply with the trade agreement’s procedures for carrying out risk assessments based on “relevant international scientific principles.”
Countries considering entering into trade agreements with the United States may now be more reluctant to do so if their domestic policies can be challenged in a trade court.
The Mexican government defended its position but vowed to comply with the ruling. “The Government of Mexico does not share the panel’s determination, as it considers that the measures in question are in line with the principles of protection of public health and the rights of Indigenous peoples, established in national legislation and in the international treaties to which it is a party,” read a statement following the ruling.
The ruling will not settle the debate over the health and environmental risks of GM corn and its associated herbicides, In the course of the dispute, Mexico produced extensive peer-reviewed scientific evidence that showed ample cause for precaution given the risks associated with both GM corn and its associated herbicide glyphosate. Recent studies have shown negative health impacts to the gastrointestinal tract and potential damage to the liver, kidneys, and other organs.
“[We] did an exhaustive review of the scientific literature,” explained María Elena Àlvarez-Buylla, the molecular geneticist who led Mexico’s national science agency, CONAHCYT, until October. “We concluded that the evidence was more than sufficient to restrict, out of precaution, the use of GM corn and its associated agro-chemical, glyphosate, in the country’s food supply chains.”
That evidence was presented in great detail to the tribunal in Mexico’s formal filings during the process, and it has now been published as a “Science Dossier.” It represents one of the most comprehensive reviews of the scientific evidence of the risks of GM corn and glyphosate to public health and the environment.
For its part, the U.S. government declined to present evidence that its GM corn with glyphosate residues is safe to eat in Mexico, where corn is consumed at more than 10 times the levels as in the United States and in minimally processed forms such as tortillas, not in processed foods.
“The research on the part of the U.S. was quite poor,” says Dr. Álvarez-Buylla, noting that U.S. research was outdated, ignored many recent studies, and depended on science that is “full of conflicts of interest.”
The U.S. government also failed to produce any evidence that Mexico’s February 2023 presidential decree had any meaningful impacts on U.S. exporters. U.S. corn exports have increased since the decree was enacted, not shrunk. The measures restricted only GM white corn use in tortillas, less than 1% of the U.S. corn exported to Mexico.
Early on in the dispute, Mexican Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro stated that the U.S. needed to show “quantitatively, with numbers, something that has not occurred: that the corn decree has commercially affected” U.S. exporters. The U.S. has yet to produce any such evidence.
Meanwhile, president-elect Trump’s threatened tariffs are blatantly illegal under the USMCA and promise to inflict massive economic harm on Mexican exporters, and on U.S.-based firms that produce in Mexico.
The pro-U.S., pro-agrochemical industry ruling will ripple far beyond this dispute. Mexico’s documentation of the evidence of risk from GM corn and glyphosate should prompt consumers and governments the world over to take a closer look at these controversial products, and at the lax U.S. regulatory processes exposed by Mexico.
Countries considering entering into trade agreements with the United States may now be more reluctant to do so if their domestic policies can be challenged in a trade court. Kenya has been negotiating a trade agreement with the United States. Kenyans are already concerned the agreement will open Kenya to GM animal feeds, says Anne Maina of the Kenya Biodiversity and Biosafety Association. If the agreement can be used to challenge domestic policies, she says, it will be even less palatable.
It remains to be seen how the Mexican government will comply with the ruling. It has 45 days to respond. Already, President Claudia Sheinbaum has reiterated her support for a constitutional amendment to enshrine a ban on GM corn cultivation and consumption in tortillas. A “Right to Food” law passed last year mandates labeling of foods containing GMOs. No tortilla seller wants such a label on its products, because Mexican consumers are clear that they do not want GM corn in their tortillas.
The tribunal’s ruling will not undo the fact that Mexico’s precautionary policies are indeed justified by a wealth of scientific evidence. By allowing the trade agreement to undermine a domestic policy that barely affects trade, it will further tarnish the legitimacy of an agreement already seen as favoring multinational corporations over public health and the environment.
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In Win for Agribusiness, Trade Panel Backs US Challenge to Mexican GM Corn Ban
"Trade agreements should not allow multinational pesticide and biotech companies to imperil the health of people and the environment," one campaigner said.
Dec 21, 2024
A trade dispute panel under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement ruled on Friday that Mexico violated the trade accord with its ban on genetically modified corn for human consumption.
The decision was a win for the agribusiness industry and the Biden administration, which called for the panel in August of last year after negotiations with the Mexican government failed. However, civil society groups condemned the ruling, saying it overlooked threats to the environment, public health, and Indigenous rights while overstating potential harm to U.S. corn exporters.
"The panel ignores the mountains of peer-reviewed evidence Mexico presented on the risks to public health and the environment of genetically modified (GM) corn and glyphosate residues for people in Mexico who consume more than 10 times the corn as we do in the U.S. and do so not in processed foods but in minimally processed forms such as tortillas," Timothy A. Wise, an investigative journalist with U.S. Right to Know, told Common Dreams. "Mexico's precautionary policies are indeed well-grounded in science, and the U.S. and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) have no business using a trade agreement to undermine a domestic policy that barely affects trade between the two countries."
"This ruling will make winners out of agrochemical corporations and losers out of everyone else."
Then-Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) first announced a ban on GM corn and glyphosate in 2020, to go into effect by 2024. This was then amended in February 2023 to scratch the 2024 deadline for animal feed and industrial uses of corn, but immediate ban GM corn for tortillas and tortilla dough. While the deleted deadline was widely seen as a concession to pressure from the Biden administration, the U.S. still went ahead with challenging the rule under the USMCA.
In response to Friday's decision, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack commended the panel for affirming that "Mexico's approach to biotechnology was not based on scientific principles or international standards."
"Mexico's measures ran counter to decades' worth of evidence demonstrating the safety of agricultural biotechnology, underpinned by science- and risk-based regulatory review systems," Vilsack continued. "This decision ensures that U.S. producers and exporters will continue to have full and fair access to the Mexican market, and is a victory for fair, open, and science- and rules-based trade, which serves as the foundation of the USMCA as it was agreed to by all parties."
Yet several U.S. environmental groups backed Mexico's case and said the science used by the U.S. to establish the safety of GM corn was out-of-date and insufficient. For example, the U.S. relies on studies from when GM or genetically engineered corn was first introduced to the market and does not account for how pesticides and herbicides are currently used on the corn.
"Trade agreements should not allow multinational pesticide and biotech companies to imperil the health of people and the environment," said Kendra Klein, PhD, deputy director of science at Friends of the Earth U.S. "The science is clear that GMO corn raises serious health concerns and that production of GMO corn depends on intensive use of the toxic weedkiller glyphosate."
Mily Treviño-Sauceda, the executive director of the Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, condemned Friday's decision.
"Mexico's policies to ban the use of GM corn and glyphosate were enacted to protect biodiversity, cultural heritage, and the rights of Indigenous people," Treviño-Sauceda said. "This decision will continue to adversely impact the quality and nutritional value of food reaching Mexican households. This is just another step in the direction of consolidating agricultural power to the U.S. agro-industrial complex that we will continue to challenge until we see real change for the benefit of the public and our health."
Other trade justice and agricultural advocates said the decision was a missed opportunity to transform trade and food systems beyond Mexico.
"The USMCA was hailed as a new kind of trade agreement, taking some steps forward on issues like labor rights and investment," said Karen Hansen-Kuhn, director of trade and international strategies at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. "This dispute shows how far we still need to go. Mexico has every right to try to transform its food system to better feed its people and enhance rural livelihoods and biodiversity. The U.S. was wrong to challenge that initiative, and the panel is wrong to back them up"
Farm Action President Angela Huffman added: "We are disappointed in the panel's ruling today, which shows the U.S. successfully wielded its power on behalf of the world's largest agrochemical corporations to force their industrial technology onto Mexico. Mexico's ban GM corn and glyphosate presented a tremendous premium market opportunity for non-GM corn producers in the U.S. Instead of helping U.S. farmers transition to non-GM corn production, our government has continued to force GM corn onto people who don't want it and propped up agrochemical corporations based in other countries—such as Germany's Bayer and China's Syngenta. This ruling will make winners out of agrochemical corporations and losers out of everyone else."
Business interests, on the other hand, reacted positively to the news.
"This is the clearest of signals that upholding free-trade agreements delivers the stability needed for innovation to flourish and to anchor our food security," Emily Rees, president of plant-science industry group CropLife International, said, as Reutersreported.
The president of the U.S. National Corn Growers Association, Kenneth Hartman Jr., also celebrated the news, saying, "This outcome is a direct result of the advocacy efforts of corn grower leaders from across the country," according toThe Associated Press.
The Mexican government said it disagreed with the decision, but would abide by the panel's ruling.
"The Mexican government does not agree with the panel's finding, given that it considers that the measures in question are aligned with the principles of protecting public health and the rights of Indigenous communities," the country's Economy Department said. "Nonetheless, the Mexican government will respect the ruling."
The decision comes as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to set a 25% tariff on all imports to the U.S. from Mexico and Canada unless the two countries decrease the number of migrants and the amount of fentanyl that enters the U.S. via their borders. As this would likely violate the USCMA, it puts additional pressure on Mexico to abide by the agreement in order to reinforce norms against Trump's challenge.
Wise criticized the panel for ruling against Mexico when real threats to trade governance loom on the horizon.
"At a time when the U.S. president-elect is threatening to levy massive tariffs on Mexican products, a blatant violation of the North American trade agreement, it is outrageous that a trade tribunal ruled in favor of the U.S. complaint against Mexico's limited restrictions on genetically modified corn, which barely affect U.S. exporters," Wise said in a statement.
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Pesticide Scorecard Exposes Which Food Retailers Are Failing Bees
"Under the incoming Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency will likely do even less to mitigate the damage of pesticides, putting even more onus on companies to address the escalating risks," said one climate advocate.
Dec 10, 2024
A report released Tuesday from the environmental group Friends of the Earth finds that the U.S. food retail sector's use of pesticides on just four crops—almonds, apples, soy, and corn—could result in over $200 billion worth of financial, climate, and biodiversity risks for the industry between 2024 and 2050. Pollinators, including bees, form a crucial link between pesticide use and these risks.
The report was released in tandem with the group's annual retailer scorecard, which ranks the largest U.S. grocery stores on the "steps they are taking to address the use of toxic pesticides in their supply chains and to support the expansion of organic agriculture and other ecological solutions."
While it highlights some industry leadership on this issue, the authors of the scorecard say that, on the whole, retailer action to curb the impact of pesticides falls short. The following retailers received an "F" grade from Friends of the Earth: Wakefern, Publix, Dollar General, 7-Eleven Inc., Hy-Vee, Walgreens, H-E-B, BJ's, Amazon, and Wegmans.
Although its owner, Amazon, received an F grade, the grocery store Whole Foods was the only retailer that was given an A grade.
A handful of the companies, including Whole Foods, have made time bound pledges to address pesticide use by requiring fresh produce suppliers to adopt ecological farming methods and to confirm their practices through third-party verifications. Eight companies have created policies that encourage suppliers to reduce the use of "pesticides of concern—including neonicotinoids, organophosphates, and glyphosate—and to shift to least-toxic approaches," according to the scorecard.
Friends of the Earth's report on risks associated with pesticide use explains why scrutiny around retailers' use of pesticides is warranted, and why retailers themselves ought to be motivated to reduce these risks.
For one thing, "under the incoming Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency will likely do even less to mitigate the damage of pesticides, putting even more onus on companies to address the escalating risks," according to Kendra Klein, deputy director of science at Friends of the Earth.
"Food retailers must urgently reduce their use of pesticides and advance organic and other ecologically regenerative approaches. They have the opportunity to lead in the fight against biodiversity collapse and climate change, helping to ensure Americans have continued access to healthy food," she said in a statement.
An estimated one-third of world crops rely on pollination, and a little less than three-fourths of fruit and vegetable crops require pollination from insects and other creatures, according to the report. Pollinators are often studied as an indicator for biodiversity risk and general environmental health—and experts cite pesticides as among the reasons that pollinators are in decline. Research also shows that pesticides poise a threat to healthy soil ecosystems.
According to the report, an estimated one-third of world crops rely on pollination, and a little less than three-fourths of fruit and vegetable crops require pollination from insects and other creatures. Pollinators are often studied as an indicator for biodiversity risk and general environmental health—and experts cite pesticides as among the reasons that pollinators are in decline, per the report. Research also shows that pesticides poise a threat to healthy soil ecosystems, the report states.
The report states that 89% of the almond crop area, 72% of apples, 100% of corn, and 40% of soy receives more than one "lethal dose" of an insecticide that is considered toxic to bees. This "quantification of the risk of pesticides to pollinators" for the four crops "provides the values to conduct the financial analysis in this study."
The document details how the food retail industry's use of pesticides creates direct costs for the industry—for example, the money spent purchasing and applying the pesticides, the CO2 emissions associated with using or producing pesticides, and the impact on crop yields, as well as indirect costs.
When it comes to climate damage costs, the report estimates that U.S. food retailer sales for products that include soy, corn, apples, and almonds will suffer $4.5 billion over the period of 2024-50. Biodiversity risk stemming from using pollinator-harming pesticides on those four crops is valued much higher, at $34.3 billion, over the same time period.
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