A Blast Against US Interference in AMLO’s Herbicide Phaseout

This past New Year’s Eve, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador “quietly rocked the agribusiness world” with a decree banning the herbicide glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, and later announced a phase-out of the cultivation of genetically modified corn. This past spring, a broad coalition of US activist groups in everything from agriculture and public health to the environment and labor rights called on the Biden administration to “respect Mexico’s sovereignty and refrain from interfering with its right to enact health-protective policies.” In Common Dreams, Jessica Corbett has offered more background.

The groups’ letter on the Mexican policies and U.S. interference — published in English and Spanish — is addressed to recently confirmed U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Its lead author is Kristin Schafer, executive director of Pesticide Action Network North America.

“We call on Secretary Vilsack and Trade Representative Tai, as key leaders in the new administration, to respect Mexico's decision to protect both public health and the integrity of Mexican farming,” Schafer said in a statement. “It is completely unacceptable for U.S. public agencies to be doing the bidding of pesticide corporations like Bayer, who are solely concerned with maintaining their bottom-line profits.”

Fernando Bejarano, director of Pesticide Action Network in Mexico, explained that “we are part of the No Maize No Country Campaign, a broad coalition of peasant organizations, nonprofit NGOs, academics, and consumers which support the presidential decree and the fight for food sovereignty.”

The letter … highlights Guardian reporting that CropLife America and Bayer-Monsanto worked with US officials to lobby against Mexico's plans.

“We strongly object to any interference by US government officials or agribusiness interests in a sovereign state's right to enact policy measures to protect the health and well-being of its people,” the letter states. “We urge your agencies to resist and reject these ongoing efforts.”