Mexico city – In Mexico there is a popular saying in which corn for national mythology is as central as the gastronomy.
There is no country without corn. There is no country without corn.
This week, the leaders of Mexico voted to anchor this concept in the constitution, to declare locals as the “element of national identity” and to forbid the planting of genetically modified seeds.
The measure that aims to protect Mexico's thousands of Erbstückmorn from constructed versions that are sold by American companies such as Monsanto has become a nationalist rally cry. The support for the reform has only increased in recent months because Mexico has defended insults, tariffs and even the specter of President Trump's US military intervention.
“Mais is Mexico,” said President Claudia Sheinbaum recently and described the reform as a way to secure Mexico's sovereignty. “We have to protect it for biological diversity, but also culturally, because Mais combines us with our origins with our origins with the resistance of the indigenous peoples.”
The Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum at her morning press conference in the National Palace in Mexico City on March 4.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)
After the defeat in December, the constitution was changed in December of a related effort that wanted to carry out all imports of genetically modified corn. Former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a presidential secretion in 2023 in which he had banned the use of genetically modified corn in dough and tortillas as well as for animal feed and industrial use. However, a trading committee decided that it had violated the agreement between the USA and Mexico Canada.
Mexico agreed to adhere to the committee of the committee and target the actions of this week on seeds, not all products.
The change received the last approval from the congress on Wednesday and was sent to Sheinbaum for her signature. It was also approved by the majority of state legislation.
Every year the USA sells around 5 billion US dollars of genetically modified corn that have been designed to resist pests and tolerate herbicides. Most of this corn is used to feed cattle.
Before the constitutional reform, it was largely illegal to plant modified corn in Mexico, thanks to a complaint from 2013 by farmers activists. But experts say it still happens. And they say that the presence of technical seeds and corn in Mexico threatens the great variety of corn plants that have been extended from burned orange to purple and pink and adapted over centuries to be grown at different heights and climate zones.
“There is a disturbing level of contamination of local Maise with genetically modified features,” said Timothy Wise, researcher at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. Some traditional varieties of Mexican corn have already been extinct, he said:
This alerts many in Mexico, where corn has not only become a staple of nutrition, but a symbol of Mexico itself.
The invention of corn by Mexicans is only comparable to the invention of fire by humans
– Octavio Paz
Corn was born here about 9,000 years ago when Meso -American farmers for the first time the wild grass domesticated as known as Theointe.
It has been worshiped here since then that sculptors have cut pictures of centerot, the Aztec deity of corn, in pre-Hispanic temples and artists such as Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in their paintings in their paintings.
The poet Octavio Paz was just one of many who produced the virtues of the plant and said: “The invention of corn by Mexican is only comparable to the invention of human fire.”
Probably no people in the world receive a larger proportion of their calories from corn as a Mexican, and the researchers estimate that the average person eats one or two pounds a day here.
A man sells corn in CoattaCoalcos, Veracruz.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
It is pureed in Masa and cooked in Tortillas, Tamales and TlaCoyos. The seeds are soaked in fragrant pozole and brewed into a hearty breakfast drink that is known as Atole.
“It is the root of our culture and gives us strength and identity,” said María Elena Álvarez-Buylla, researcher of molecular genetics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “It is our staples. It is very risky to lose sovereignty over a fundamental aspect of our life and our health. “
Álvarez-Buylla led the Mexican National Council for humanities, science and technology until last year and has published studies in which risks to health and environment claim genetically modified corn and herbicides associated with it.
She says that US corn is less nutritious than the Mexican version and is associated with liver diseases and other problems. Her studies showed that nine of ten Tortilla samples from several cities in Mexico had traces of genetically modified corn.
The United States, its farmers and companies that sell morns seeds refute Mexico's claim that its products are associated with risks.
They celebrated the December trade dispute, which came after a concerted lobbying from corn producers in countries such as Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska. “This victory shows the power of the corn interest representation,” said Kenneth Hartman Jr. of the National Corn Growers Assn.
Mexico was an exporter of corn until the 1980s. This changed the farewell of the North American free trade agreement in 1994, which laid the basis for the current trading pact.
Many small family farms in Mexico could not compete with large US farmers who enjoy high federal grants. In the three decades since NAFTA came into force, the annual corn imports according to Mexico rose from around 3.1 million tons to almost 23.4 million tons, according to the US Agriculture Ministry and the US Court of Justice.
The change forced many Mexican farmers to shift to subsistence breeding or to take on seasonal work far from their houses. Many others went to find work in the United States.
Wise said it was ironic that the United States would have used the free trade agreement to contradict Mexico's efforts to prohibit corn imports, at the same time when Trump imposed tariffs for US imports – and then reversed.
The US trade policy seems to be: “We ignore the agreement if it is comfortable for us. We will enforce it if it affects some biotech companies. “
He said the Mexicans had decided a long time ago that they did not want genetically modified corn and that he is largely due to one thing: taste.
“Nobody wants to eat it,” he said.
Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico city contributed to this report.