MONSANTO stops Mexico from phasing out ROUNDUP use in farming

MEXICO- In November 2020, President @lopezobrador_ signed an executive order (decree) to phase out slowly the use of MONSANTO ROUNDUP (Glyphosate) in Mexico’s farming by 2024, stating that federal biosecurity authorities would “revoke and refrain from granting permits for the release of genetically modified corn seeds into the environment in the near future” reports Reforma news agency.

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The phase-out plan requires @Conacyt_MX (Science and Technology Department) to search and analyze alternatives to glyphosate-herbicides, including methods used by indigenous farmers for thousands of years.

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The decree (executive order) noted that the object of the decision, which came after months of unsuccessful pushback from lobbying groups representing the massive food industry, was to “contribute to food security and sovereignty” and protect the 220 varieties of Mexican “native corn”, cornfields, bio-cultural wealth, farming communities, gastronomic heritage and the health of Mexicans.”
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1. At the beginning of 2021, #AMLO signed an executive order to ban GM corn and the toxic chemical #glyphosate over three years.

Now, a judge has provided #Bayer with a stay against the order.

The Mexican judiciary’s war against AMLO’s agenda continues.https://t.co/cHbDcSWaMC

— Kurt Hackbarth 🌹 (@KurtHackbarth) April 30, 2021

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The health reason behind the decree
Studies have shown three of the reasons why many Mexicans died during the pandemic was as follows:

•  A) due to a bad diet (junk food etc. Mexico is #2 in global obesity), and
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• B) the health of Mexicans in terms of healthy immune systems has been depleted by the use of Chemicals in food.– this is true for the U.S. as well–but U.S authorities do not talk about or care to invest in research because the sugar, junk food, chemical, etc industries don’t allow this.
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• C) Mexico’s ministry of environment and natural resources stated it has scientific evidence about the dangerous effects of glyphosate, and also plans to conduct a study particular for Mexico, with assistance from international organizations”.
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OUTCOME: MONSANTO setup an army of lawyers to stop the decree with the use of AMPAROS, part of a new legal tactic called “Lawfare” utilized in Latin America to render governments paralyzed with a baragge of lawsuits. Currently, the President’s executive order is sitting dead on paper. An Amparo is a legal mechanism in Mexico that was originally created to protect the weak citizen against lawsuits, and now its been abused by large corporations–who historically have corrupt judges on their payroll, hence why Mexico wants to pass a judicial reform which is also currently stopped by another judge.

Read Jacobin article on the endemic corruption in the judicial system in Mexico.

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Mexico’s concern for the health of its citizens has triggered anger in the United States for the profit of agricultural exports, especially Bayer’s glyphosate products. Emails reviewed by The Guardian come from the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) and other US agencies states that Mexico’s health agency (Cofepris) is “becoming a big time problem”.

Currently, a wave of AMPAROS have stopped several reforms, decrees, and mandates on a dozen of AMLO’s key national security projects, from Electric law, to telecommunications law, judicial reform, and now the decree to ban GMO’s and Glyphosate.

Many of these companies have technically auto-proclaimed themselves Mexico’s unelected legislative body, and are stopping all types of laws or projects to protect U.S. and Spanish corporate intrest in Mexico. Companies like  @iberdrola, which uses investment funds from BlackRock, or companies like Walmart and Coca-cola, have engaged in an unprecedented policy takeover of state powers.
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Not only these companies are stepping all over Mexican laws and its institutions, but they were found to be stealing gasoline from Pemex oil company and electricity from @CFE, avoiding to pay taxes. Plus, Monsanto/Bayer, Pepsi co, and others were found to be skimming funds Mexico’s Science and technology department, and top that up, currently these large multinationals are paying less in electricity than a middle-class Mexican household thanks to the Energy Reform they purchased from Mexican congress in 2014 by paying off Senators.

The Secretary of environment explains the situation in a short interview:

▶️ #Entrevista a María Luisa Albores, titular de @SEMARNAT_mx, sobre la suspensión provisional a la empresa Monsanto para usar glifosato.

Acompaña a @CarlaConGa05 en #OnceNoticias. pic.twitter.com/VB1iErs3oj

— Once Noticias (@OnceNoticiasTV) April 26, 2021

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The decree did not surface from Lopez Obrador administration over night, but it’s the result of over 15 years demand from the public and particularly from Mexican farmers who found themselves invaded by Monsanto’s GMO crops.
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Farmers have been brutally disenfranchised and attacked by Monsanto’s practice of monopolizing the farming industry in Mexico for almost two decades. The situation has left many farmers unable to compete with industrialized agriculture–very similar to what India’s farmers have gone through in the last two decades, as well.

The history behind Monsanto’s Assault on Mexico’s Corn

In 2009, changes in Mexican law allowed biotech giants like Monsanto to conduct trials of GMO corn in approved regions of the country.

Two years later, in 2011, Monsanto and Syngenta asked for a permit to plant GM corn in several states in Northern Mexico. Not surprisingly, they found legal loopholes and sympathetic government officials. The imminent infiltration of GM corn in Mexico threatened Mexico’s ancient tradition of seed exchanges and seed banks. It also threatened to cross contaminate native corn crops, pollute the environment, destroy biodiversity, poison the people and bring poverty to small producers by privatizing corn production through the sale of proprietary patented seeds—just as industrial GMO crops have done in other parts of the world.  >> Read full story of Mexico’s centuries of corn diversity.