U.S. urges Mexico for GMO acceptance

Jul 12, 2021

USTR Katherine Tai recently met with Mexican officials

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

The United States is asking Mexico to reconsider decisions that will affect American farmers.

United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai traveled to Mexico last week with her Canadian and Mexican counterparts to commemorate the first anniversary of the entry-into-force of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

The trilateral trade agreement came into force on July 1, 2020.

While in Mexico last week, Ambassador Tai urged Mexico to reverse course on GMO corn and allow more U.S. potatoes into the country.

“Ambassador Tai emphasized the importance of Mexico immediately resuming the authorization of biotechnology products and inquired about the status of expanding access for U.S. fresh potatoes throughout Mexico,” a July 7 press release from Tai’s office says.

In 2019, The U.S. exported about $2.7 billion worth of corn to Mexico.

On Dec. 31, 2020, the Mexican government published a decree stating it would ban imports of GMO corn for human consumption by January 2024.

In March 2021, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack indicated the ban would not apply to animal feed.

The USMCA includes a biotechnology chapter aimed at spurring collaboration between Canada, Mexico and the United States to benefit corn, cotton and soybean producers.

But Mexico hasn’t approved any new biotech traits since 2018.

On the potato front, a Mexican Supreme Court decision in April of this year overturned a lower court decision from 2017 which prevented the government from allowing fresh U.S. potatoes into Mexico.

Ahead of the meeting with Mexican officials, the National Potato Council urged Ambassador Tai to take a “trust but verify” stance with Mexico.

And if Mexico refuses to open its borders to U.S. potatoes, action may be necessary, the group said.

“Should Mexico continue its historical pattern by delaying reinstating market access for U.S. potatoes or illegitimately restricting the market, we strongly urge USDA and USTR to move forward with the dispute resolution process under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and thereby seek to apply tariffs against Mexican exports to the U.S such as avocados,” the group wrote in a June 28 letter.

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”