The Canada Grains Council is glad the CUSMA dispute settlement panel ruled in favour of the U.S. regarding imports of genetically modified corn into Mexico.
In February of 2023, Mexico instituted a ban on imports of dough and tortillas made from GM corn and had plans to reduce GM corn use in animal feed and other food uses. The U.S. filed an appeal in August the same year, saying the ban is not based on science and ignores clear evidence that genetically modified corn is safe. Mexico has been importing genetically modified corn from the U.S. for years, buying about $3 billion worth annually, to feed livestock.
Krista Thomas, the Vice-President of Trade Policy and Seed Innovation for the Canada Grains Council, says Canada got involved as a third-party. It allowed Canada to participate in parts of the panel process and provide written input to panel members.
“There was about a hundred-plus page document that Canadian officials prepared and a lot of that focused on technical matters of law, but Canada was also to show some examples where our risk assessors had applied international standards to address some of the issues that Mexico was raising, so we were able to show how those international standards work and they could apply to the Mexican situation, because Mexico was trying to argue, in part, that they have some special circumstances and those international standards just don’t apply.”
In the end, the dispute panel ruled that Mexico’s position was not science-based and undermined the market access Mexico agreed to provide in the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement.
Thomas says court cases related to genetically modified crops have popped up occasionally over the decades, but in each instance, “science has always ruled the day.”
“It was really good to see once again that the panel listened to scientific experts and concluded that the actions Mexico were taking were not justified. So even though Canada doesn’t export corn, it may not directly affect our exports, it provides more predictability for the future for canola and it sends a signal to trading partners that it’s still really important to maintain rule of law and to have predictable rules in place that everyone follows.”
She says Mexico, which publicly disagreed with the ruling but is willing to accept it, has about 45 days to comply with the ruling, otherwise the United States has some options they can take. Thomas noted Mexico isn’t done yet with GM corn with its President, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, talking about possibly implementing a ban on growing genetically modified corn within her country. Thomas doesn’t believe that particular ban will affect Canada’s trade relations with Mexico.
Thomas believes what was witnessed during the dispute resolution process was each country looking after their own farmers.
“We all want the same thing: we all want our farmers to be able to be profitable and to take care of our land and the three countries have had a history of cooperation and communication on bio-tech, so I think everyone is hopeful that this can take a step back from the legal processes and we can get back to continuing discussions about how we can use innovations like GM crops to farm more sustainably. These crops have been very important for Canadian farmers in terms of helping…their soil health and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, so I think there’s ample room there for a more cooperative discussion to emerge and hopefully that’s what we will see.”
