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MEXICO’S CORN PRODUCING SECTOR

MEXICO’S CORN PRODUCING SECTOR. Alejandro Nadal PART 4. Effects of GMO’s on Mexico’s Corn Producers. Benefits Do GMOs increase yields? Why and how much? What about costs? Damages Increased use of pesicides Agrobiodiversity

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MEXICO’S CORN PRODUCING SECTOR

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  1. MEXICO’S CORN PRODUCING SECTOR Alejandro Nadal PART 4

  2. Effects of GMO’s on Mexico’s Corn Producers • Benefits • Do GMOs increase yields? Why and how much? • What about costs? • Damages • Increased use of pesicides • Agrobiodiversity • Mexico’s new Biosafety Law: a law for the TNC’s and an absurd liabilities and damages’ redress regime

  3. Mexico’s New Biosafety Law • Assumption: GMO’s do not entail risks • Ignores Cartagena Protocol for transboundary movements of GMO’s • GMO-free zones to be designated • Natural protected areas: GMO’s can be liberated in buffer zones for bio-remediation • Centers of origin: no GMO’s tolerated in these areas (but 88% of Mexico’s territory qualifies as centre of origin) • Very weak liability and redress regime

  4. Basic Flaws of Mexico’s Biosafety Law • GMO’s may pose risk. Debate. Cartagena Protocol. • Civil vs objective liability: the new law chose the weakest regime • No balance between technical innovation and environmental and health protection • No incentives to minimize risks • Centers of origin difficult to determine • Natural protected areas: liberating GMO’s can imply introduction of invasive alien species

  5. GMO’s: will they help or threaten maize biodiversity? • Currently available transgenes (Bt and herbicide resistance) are marginally attractive to Mexican poor producers • Will there be soon a transgene significantly useful to poor producers (without royalty payments or license fees)? • Some Bt maize is not adapted to the pests that plague corn production in Mexico • Most transgenic corn unlikely to pose more threat to landraces than a new successful cultivar developed by traditional methods • The presence of a few transgenes in the Mexican maize genome unlikely to present serious problems; some experts think problems could arise in the future with gene accumulation (Turrent, Serratos) • Effects on teosinte populations uncertain (Rissler and Mellon) • Production of industrial and pharmaceutical products (“pharming”) may pose a more serious threat through seed and pollen-borne contamination • Organic producers for domestic or international markets: will they lose their certificates? • One important open question: will Mexican producers be liable to legal action for patent infringement? More important: economic and social forces are working to expel poor maize producers out business. At the same time, other economic forces compel them to maintain output levels. Will these production systems collapse?

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