Advocate concerned with Mexico’s GMO corn ban

As snow swirled over the soil hundreds of acres in each direction, Owen Niese already was worried about a crop that hadn’t even been planted.

He was concerned because Mexico’s president, Andrés Obrador, decided this winter to ban genetically modified corn, a staple crop not just for Niese, but for farmers across northern Ohio.

Mexico is the second-largest buyer of U.S. corn, just behind China. Ohio is a top 10 corn-producing state.

The ban came about four months after Niese, like most farmers, already had purchased 2023 seed corn.

“They want to deliver it now, because I need to plant it in a month,” Niese said. “So for this year, it’s impossible to get non-gmo seed and produce a non-gmo crop.”

Mexico’s corn ban ‘is very political’

Obrador’s corn ban is not just financially troubling for farmers, but also is a direct violation of an international treaty, according to Tadd Nicholson, executive director of Ohio Corn & Wheat Growers Association.

The organization advocates public policy on behalf of nearly 2,000 member farms from across the Buckeye State.

Nicholson explained the United States, Mexico and Canada all agreed to the U.s.-mexico-canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2020, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) after 26 years.

Treaty issues and inquiries were transitioned Feb. 12 to the Textiles and Trade Agreements Division of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to the customs website, cbp.gov.

By signing the treaty, the heads of the three largest North American nations “committed to basing their regulation on scientific research,” according to a March 6, 2023, New York Times article.

The Times reported “that Mexico’s ban on genetically modified corn did not conform to those promises.”

Ohio’s top corn-growing advocate agrees, adding Obrador has chosen politics over science.

“He is ignoring the sound science that says, by every health organization in the world that has tested this, that it is safe for consumption of both humans and animals,” Nicholson said. “So it’s very political.”

‘Our research dollars are invested in GMO’

Niese grew up on his family’s farm in northern Richland County. Like his father and grandfather before him, he grows yellow corn and soybeans. “We’re a multigeneration farm,” Niese said. Over the decades, their farm practices have been tailored to match their crops, which are grown from genetically modified seed.

“All of our research dollars are invested in GMO corn,” Niese said.

That means scientists selecting genetic traits to produce plants that are more resistant to diseases and drought, allowing farmers to harvest as many bushels per acre as possible.

“It’s hundreds of years of selective breeding,” Niese said. “To feed all the other countries we need to feed, we need those yields.”

It’s not just corn, either. Soybeans also have improved over the decades through genetic modification.