Mexico vows not to budge on US corn dispute


Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador gives his regularly scheduled morning press conference, decorated with an image of Francisco "Pancho" Villa, a general in the Mexican Revolution, at the National Palace in Mexico City, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023.

 (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte) 

Tue, March 7, 2023

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's president vowed Tuesday not to back down in a dispute with the United States over a potential ban on imports of genetically modified corn.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office announced Monday it had called for consultations with Mexico over proposed rules that would ban GM corn for human consumption. Mexico has said it could eventually ban it for animal feed as well.

Mexico argues that GM corn could somehow harm the health of those who consume animals raised on it, though it has not yet presented any proof of such ill effects.

Mexico had previously appeared eager to avoid a major showdown with the United States on the corn issue. On Tuesday, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said consultations continued, but suggested Mexico would still seek to implement some form of ban.

“We still have a month,” López Obrador said of the talks. “If there is no agreement, we'll go to a panel,” he said, referring to the dispute resolution mechanism under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, known as the USMCA.

“Because this is a very important issue for us,” the president said, adding “it is the health of our people.”

“No treaty in the world allows people to sell merchandise that damages health,” he said.

The U.S. trade representative’s office said the ban could “threaten to disrupt billions of dollars in agricultural trade.”

Mexico is the leading importer of U.S. corn, most of which is genetically modified. Almost all is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens in Mexico, which doesn’t grow enough feed corn to supply itself.

Mexico had previously softened its stance, but refused to completely drop talk of any ban.

In February, Mexico’s Economy Department issued new rules that dropped the date for substituting imports of GM feed corn. Some imported corn is also ground into meal for use in corn chips or other snacks.

Under a previous version of the rules, some U.S. growers worried a GM feed corn ban could happen as soon as 2024 or 2025.

While the date was dropped, the language remained in the rules about eventually substituting GM corn, something that could cause prices for meat to skyrocket in Mexico, where inflation is already high.

U.S. farmers have worried about the potential loss of the single biggest export market for U.S. corn. Mexico has been importing GM feed corn from the U.S. for years, buying about $3 billion worth annually.

The new rules still say Mexican authorities will carry out “the gradual substitution” of GM feed and milled corn, but sets no date for doing so and says potential health issues will be the subject of study by Mexican experts “with health authorities from other countries.”

Mexico was where corn was first domesticated starting around 9,000 years ago, and in order to protect its native varieties, the country will still ban imports of GM seed corn.

Mexico will also prohibit the use of GM corn for direct human consumption, which in Mexico consists mainly of fresh white corn and white corn tortilla flour. Mexico has no need to import white corn from the United States, where most corn is yellow or sweet corn.

Climate-smart ag strategies may cut nitrous oxide emissions from corn production

PENN STATE

Research News

IMAGE: LEAD RESEARCHER MARIA PONCE DE LEON, A FORMER GRADUATE STUDENT IN PLANT SCIENCE, CARRIES A NITROUS OXIDE EMISSIONS CHAMBER INTO A CORN FIELD AT PENN STATE'S RUSSELL E. LARSON AGRICULTURAL... view more 

CREDIT: HEATHER KARSTEN, PENN STATE

For corn, using dairy manure and legume cover crops in crop rotations can reduce the need for inorganic nitrogen fertilizer and protect water quality, but these practices also can contribute to emissions of nitrous oxide -- a potent greenhouse gas.

That is the conclusion of Penn State researchers, who measured nitrous oxide emissions from the corn phases of two crop rotations -- a corn-soybean rotation and a dairy forage rotation -- under three different management regimens. The results of the study offer clues about how dairy farmers might reduce the amount of nitrogen fertilizer they apply to corn crops, saving money and contributing less to climate change.

The results are important because although nitrous oxide accounts for just 7% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, it is significantly more potent than carbon dioxide or methane when it comes to driving climate change, according to Heather Karsten, associate professor of crop production/ecology in the College of Agricultural Sciences. Nitrous oxide is almost 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide and remains in the atmosphere for more than 100 years.

"This research suggests that all nitrogen inputs -- manure, legumes and fertilizer -- contribute to nitrous oxide emissions," she said. "But farmers could reduce nitrous oxide emissions if they could apply manure after the crop is planted, closer to when the corn begins to take up nitrogen.

"And if they could apply manure only when the crop needs it by "side-dressing," she added, "they likely could use less inorganic nitrogen fertilizer. But equipment for side-dressing manure into a growing corn crop is not yet widely available."

Researchers compared the effects of three management treatments for no-till corn and measured nitrous oxide emissions throughout the corn growing season. In the corn-soybean rotation, the team compared nitrous oxide emissions from broadcasting dairy manure, shallow disk manure injection, and the application of inorganic fertilizer in the form of liquid urea ammonium nitrate.

Manure was applied before corn was planted, as most farms do, while in the inorganic fertilizer treatment, fertilizer was applied according to recommended practices -- when the corn was growing and taking up nitrogen.

This better timing for nitrogen application allowed for a reduced total nitrogen application, and the nitrous oxide emissions were lower than with the injected manure treatment. Injecting manure increased nitrous oxide emissions compared to the broadcast manure treatment in one year of the study, indicating that the environmental and nitrogen-conservation benefits of injection should be weighed against the additional emissions when selecting the practice.

The researchers also compared nitrous oxide emissions from corn grown for silage or grain in the no-till, six-year, dairy forage rotation in which corn followed a two-year, mixed alfalfa and orchardgrass forage crop and also a crimson clover cover crop. Manure also was broadcasted before corn planting, and nitrous oxide emissions were compared to the rotation in which corn was planted after soybean with broadcast manure. The nitrous oxide emissions during the corn season didn't differ among the three prior legume treatments.

In both experiments, nitrous oxide emissions peaked a few weeks after manure was applied and for a short period after fertilizer was applied. Since nitrous oxide emissions are influenced by factors that influence microbial processes, the researchers examined what environmental and nitrogen-availability factors were most predictive of nitrous oxide emissions. Increasing temperatures spurring corn growth and factors that influence soil nitrogen availability were important factors in both comparisons.

The study shows that nitrogen availability from organic inputs such as manure and legume cover crops can contribute to nitrous oxide emissions from corn, noted lead researcher Maria Ponce de Leon, former graduate student in Karsten's research group, now a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Davis. Identifying how to time organic nitrogen amendments with corn uptake represents an opportunity, she said, to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from dairy production systems.

Now, dairy farmers apply manure mostly prior to planting corn, and as the manure and the organic legume biomass from the cover crop decompose, the nitrogen content builds in the soil. Some of it can be lost as nitrous oxide emissions or leach into groundwater.

"Until the corn is rapidly taking up nitrogen from the soil, there's potential for both of those environmental losses," Ponce de Leon said. "If we could better synchronize the timing of the manure application to when the corn is growing and taking up nitrogen, we could reduce nitrous oxide missions. That also would help the crop and the farmer better capture the nitrogen that's available in that manure."

CAPTION

Using measuring chambers like those shown here, researchers found that nitrous oxide emissions peaked a few weeks after manure was applied and for a short period after fertilizer was applied. Identifying how to time organic nitrogen amendments with corn uptake represents an opportunity to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from dairy production systems, the researchers said.

CREDIT

Maria Ponce de Leon, Penn State

The research, recently published in Nutrient Cycling in Agroecosystems, was conducted at Penn State's Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center as part of the much larger "Dairy Cropping Systems" project that has been underway for more than a decade. Initiated in 2010, that parent project aims to sustainably produce the forage and feed for a typical 65-cow, 240-acre dairy farm in Pennsylvania.

Curtis Dell, soil scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service Pasture Systems and Watershed Management Research Unit, contributed to the research.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture supported this work.

Food Vs. Fuel: What Trump's Ethanol Policy Means For The Food System

Oct 25, 2018 Jenny Splitter 

Senior Contributor Food & Drink Forbes
I cover the intersection of technology, farming and food.

Corn is a complicated crop. It’s highly efficient, nutrient-packed and yet, on the other hand, the U.S. probably grows too much of it.

With corn’s high yields and caloric density, it serves as a far better food source than it does as a source for fuel

Corn sits on top of a combine after being harvested in Shelbyville, Kentucky, U.S.

 
The Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with President Trump’s directive to lift a federal ban on high ethanol blended gas during the summer months, though not quickly enough for Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who Reuters reports is urging the EPA to lift the ban on a much quicker timeline. Lifting the ban is a policy shift that’s being celebrated by large-scale corn growers and decried by biofuel opponents. But the policy has implications for the food system too, as many food system reformers say the last thing U.S. farmers should be growing is more corn.

Corn is a complicated crop. It’s highly efficient, nutrient-packed and yet, on the other hand, the U.S. probably grows too much of it. Corn has earned its fair share of criticism — it’s starchy, grown industrially and ubiquitous in ultra-processed food — but this leading cereal crop has also more than earned its place as an agricultural success story.

A beef cow eats grain-based rations at the Texana Feeders feedlot in Floresville, Texas, U.S.
Modern maize is descended from an ancient grass called teosinte. Corn’s ancient precursor was modified over the years by careful seed saving efforts, brought into the U.S. from Mexico by indigenous tribes where it was later introduced to early European settlers, eventually becoming a staple of colonial American cooking.

Synthetic fertilizer, advances in transportation and government subsidies all paved the way for corn to become the U.S.’s highest yielding crop. More corn meant more feed for cattle, which led to a boon in the production of beef and milk, plentiful protein sources for a growing American population.

Corn is nutritionally dense and genetically diverse. There are many, many different types of maize — including popcorn, corn with higher lysine and protein content, blue corn and corn with rainbow-colored gemstone-like kernels. But most of the corn grown in the U.S. doesn’t belong to any of these unique varieties because most of it isn’t actually grown for human consumption at all, and that’s the crux of the food system problem.

Process operator Dean Wingerter takes a corn oil sample, a product used in the production of Biofuels

More than 90 million acres of U.S. farmland is devoted to growing corn, but most of it goes to animal feed and ethanol production. Corn grown for ethanol fuels cars rather than people, and that’s a significant problem for the coming global food crisis, argues Tim Searchinger, Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute.

Ethanol production began increasing in the 1990s (more than doubling between 1999 and 2004), thanks to a combination of federal and state policies favoring ethanol-blended fuel. Ethanol production surged even more dramatically after authorization of the renewal fuel standard in 2005, passed in part to reduce American reliance on foreign oil. Dependence on foreign oil did indeed decline over the years, but that doesn’t mean the U.S. is less reliant on oil as a fuel source. Americans are still pumping plenty of gas, with more now sourced from U.S.-based fracking operations.

An employee inspects freshly picked ears of bi-color sweet corn at the Scotlynn Sweet Pac Growers

That’s not the only problem with policies favoring ethanol production, however. The increasing reliance on ethanol, ethanol blends and biofuels isn’t actually better for the food system or the environment, argues Searchinger, and that’s because of what he describes as “basically a kind of math error.”

Biofuel advocates argue that even though burning biofuel emits at least as much if not a bit more carbon than regular gas, based on both tailpipe emissions as well as the emissions resulting from ethanol production, those carbon emissions are canceled out because similar levels of carbon are absorbed by the corn when it’s growing in the field.

That would be true, says Searchinger, if the land weren’t already in use as farmland prior to shifting to ethanol production. Since the crops grown on the land have been absorbing carbon all along, “you can't take credit for something that was already occurring.”

That calculus, along with increasing global demand for food, cuts against policies favoring crops for ethanol production, argues Searchinger. “We already have this huge challenge that we have to produce more or less 50% more food,” he says, so why use that farmland for what turns out to be an inefficient fuel source?

It takes a large amount of land to produce a relatively small amount of bioenergy, explains Searchinger, who argues in his working paper, Avoiding Bioenergy Competition For Food Crops and Land, that “[a]lthough photosynthesis is an effective means of producing food, wood products, and carbon stored in vegetation, it is an inefficient means of converting the energy in the sun’s rays into a form of non-food energy useable by people.” That’s because it takes a fair amount of energy to take these plants, in this case corn, and convert them into ethanol.

But the plants themselves are renewable, biofuel advocates argue, as more and more can be planted indefinitely. Not so fast, says Searchinger, who says these renewable crops are kind of like a monthly paycheck. Sure, next month there will be another paycheck, but it’s still important to spend that paycheck wisely. “That's the same for plant growth...we can use it for food...for wood products, we use it to store carbon, we use it actually to replenish carbon that microbes are putting back in the atmosphere [but] if we use it for energy, we lose the other uses.” The Renewable Fuels Association, leading trade association for the ethanol industry, rejects this argument, pointing to low food prices and food surpluses in support of continued ethanol production.

Chilled local sweet corn soup is arranged for a photo at Lever House in New York, U.S.

Corn might be an inefficient source of fuel, but it’s an incredibly efficient food crop — a high-yielding, whole grain nutritious option. One ear of corn contains 10% of an adult’s recommended daily fiber intake, with the high lysine varieties providing a fairly decent amount of protein to boot. Many different cuisines rely heavily on corn, which is part of why corn is the leading cereal crop grown throughout the world, followed by rice and wheat.

Corn may be starchy and industrially grown, but that’s exactly what makes it an abundant source of nutrition. With corn’s high yields and caloric density, it serves as a far better food source than it does as a source for fuel. That’s not to say the U.S. agricultural system couldn’t stand to boost other nutritionally dense crops like tubers and oats. Cover crops and new microbial solutions for reducing fertilizer use can aid soil health too. But policies that increase demand for ethanol mean more of the food system will continue to be devoted to corn grown for fuel, not food, which seems to be the opposite direction from where food system reform should be headed.



Jenny Splitter
I’m a food and agriculture writer whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, Popular Mechanics, OneZero, New York Magazine, Slate, Mental Floss and SELF. 

A-Maize-ing Maize: The History of Corn
Corn was domesticated nearly 9,000 years ago and has a rich history throughout the Americas.

nan fischer
Sep 7, 2018 · 

Painted Mountain Corn, photo ©Boxcar Farm, Llano, NM


Corn is one of America’s favorite vegetables in the garden and on the plate. From the rainbow-colored ‘Glass Gem’ flint corn to the classic ‘Golden Bantam’ sweet corn, corn is grown in many backyards. Buttery corn on the cob is part of almost every child’s summer memories. Popcorn and movies are inseparable. Corn chowder with oyster crackers warms us in winter. Cornbread, succotash, and taco shells are a few other common ways we heartily consume corn.

Corn (Zea mays subsp. mays) is known as “maize” in Mesoamerica and many places outside the U.S. and has its origins in a wild grass from Mexico called “teosinte.” Only five genes keep teosinte and corn from being genetically identical, and teosinte is the closest relative of today’s corn. All research and hypotheses point to the domestication of one of the four species of teosinte, Zea mays spp. parviglumis, about 9,000 years ago in Oaxaca by the Mayan people. Teosinte still grows wild in Mexico and is considered a weed and a nuisance to maize farmers. Its seed heads shatter and fall to the ground, making them hard to collect. Almost unrecognizable as a relative of today’s corn, teosinte has a branching growth habit and tiny heads of less than 12 kernels, each with a hard shell around it.

It’s hard to understand why this almost inedible plant was chosen to be cultivated as food. It may have been that there were anomalies which showed potential for food, more closely resembling today’s corn. Or maybe the environmental conditions thousands of years ago were so different they produced a teosinte other than what we see today.

No matter how domestication began, over thousands of years, the indigenous people of Mesoamerica bred a vast genetic diversity into maize that most crops never undergo. Maize was invented. Without human intervention, it would not be what it is today, and it would not continue to survive. Those ancient farmers were brilliant geneticists!
Maize’s Cultural Relevance

Besides being a revered food crop, maize was an integral part of Mesoamerican culture and spirituality. The “grain of the gods” ranked almost as high as royalty, and rituals, dances, and festivals celebrated its planting and harvest. Maize was depicted in hieroglyphics, petroglyphs, and artwork. The Mayans believed they were created from maize, and according to Charles Mann in his book 1491, Oaxacans still call themselves hombres de maiz, or men of maize.

Mesoamerican farmers noticed that teosinte grew with squash and beans in the wild, so they imitated that growing pattern in their milpas (crop-growing systems), and added other native crops, such as peppers, tomatoes, avocados, jicama, and amaranth. The plants benefited from the biological diversity, and the crops were nutritionally complementary, providing fat, protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins. Maize and the concept of the milpa migrated around Mesoamerica, eventually south to Peru and Chile and north into the future United States. Dozens of landraces were created as farmers adapted maize to their unique growing environments. The colorful palette of reds, blues, yellows, black, greens, and pinks represented the various growing conditions and the farmers’ preferences. According to Gary Paul Nabhan in Where Our Food Comes From, landraces reflected the different languages and cultures of each region because they were grown for specific purposes, such as tortillas, popcorn, textiles, and beer. This is true genetic diversity.

Large trading centers along busy routes saw the exchange of maize, stone, metal, feathers, shells, pottery, textiles, and culture. Maize arrived in the arid Desert Southwest nearly 4,000 years ago. About this time, ancestors of the Hohokam in the Sonoran Desert built an elaborate system of irrigation canals for farming. Farther north, the Anasazi in the Four Corners region and the Pueblo people of northern New Mexico also benefited from trade with Mesoamerica.

From the Southwest, trade routes radiated out to the West Coast and across the Great Plains. The indigenous people of the Plains traded with tribes near the Great Lakes. The idea of the milpa died out as it moved north because temperatures were too cold to grow some of the crops, such as avocados. But maize, which is very adaptable, was still being bred for local conditions and grown together with squash and beans, known collectively as Three Sisters.

By 900 A.D., maize was established along the Eastern Seaboard and in the Southeast. As a reliable crop for people and livestock, it had become a staple throughout the Americas. Maize has been credited for the rise of civilization because it’s adaptable, nutritious, and easy to dry and store for lean times.

Different Ways to Eat Maize

Early native cultures would harvest baby ears for the Green Corn Ceremony, held to celebrate a good growing season. It was also a purging and time of rebirth, akin to starting a new year. Green corn was a sweet treat, but it was never harvested in great numbers because the ears needed to mature to provide abundant food for the upcoming months.

Mature ears were boiled or roasted whole. Kernels cut from the cob were roasted, boiled, baked, fried, and cooked with other vegetables. Succotash, for example, is an indigenous meal of maize and beans that was cooked with bear grease or maple syrup.

As a grain, maize was ground into masa for tortillas and tamales. The addition of lime or wood ash released niacin and calcium to make it more digestible and nutritious. Fermented masa was made into an alcoholic beverage.

Native people often used all parts of the plant. Husks were woven into mats, baskets, dolls, clothing, and masks. Cobs were dried and used for rattles and fuel for the fire. Tassels were boiled into a sweet drink, and the stalks of some cultivars were eaten like sugarcane. Even corn smut, a common fungus, was eaten and is considered a delicacy today.
Maize Goes Global

Maize was foreign to the explorers from Spain and England. Columbus saw it for the first time when he arrived in Haiti. When the British landed on the eastern coast of the North American continent, they found maize fields that stretched for miles. They didn’t have a name for it, so they called it “corne,” which was a broad Middle English term for grain.

The British imported their staples of wheat, barley, oats, and rye, but these crops did poorly in their new environment. Some settlements were almost wiped out by starvation. The survivors realized they needed to grow what had proven to sustain an entire continent — maize.

The native people taught the Europeans how to grow and cook maize. Their farms soon provided enough to eat fresh, put away for winter, trade for other goods, and ship back to Europe, where farmers adapted the crop to local growing conditions.

After being brought to Europe, corn spread east and south from there and became a major staple in Africa, Eastern Europe, and China. Being adaptable, it grew where wheat or rice couldn’t and provided high energy and calories with its carbohydrates, fat, and sugar. Again, maize was responsible for burgeoning populations wherever it was introduced.
Old-Time Corn Cultivars

‘Golden Bantam’ corn was grown by William Chambers, a Massachusetts farmer in the 19th century, and was selected to be early and sweet. As the story goes, Chambers would gleefully share his harvest with his neighbors, whose crops weren’t nearly ready, but he wouldn’t share his seed. Burpee picked up the seeds after his death in 1891, developed the cultivar, and offered it for sale in 1902.

Growers today continue to improve corn strains out of curiosity, but also out of necessity. Dave Christensen of Montana has been breeding corn for more than 40 years. He gathered up dozens of rare strains that were grown throughout the Rocky Mountains and northern plains hundreds of years ago. He repeatedly selected seed from the hardiest plants that thrived in his harsh conditions and short season. ‘Painted Mountain’ corn is the result, and it’s surely on its way to becoming an heirloom.

Carl “White Eagle” Barnes developed ‘Glass Gem’ corn by isolating strains from his Cherokee ancestors. Over several years, he saved seed from the most colorful cobs. His selecting produced a wide variety of colors, each with a name, but ‘Glass Gem’ has become the best known and is grown to be popped, parched, and ground into meal.

Of course, ancient maizes are still being grown. Some are available commercially, but many others can only be found on the farms of indigenous people. ‘Hopi’ corn comes in a wide variety of colors and uses. ‘Oaxacan Green,’ ‘Mandan Bride,’ ‘Cherokee White Flour,’ and dozens more are still used for roasting and parching and to make flour, sweet corn, and popcorn.

Inca Rainbow Sweet Corn, photo ©nan fischer 2013
Preserving Heirloom Corn

Native and heirloom strains are disappearing as modern breeders try to “improve” them. We can keep the old cultivars alive by growing them, saving and sharing seed, and cultivating locally adapted landraces. It took 9,000 years for maize to become what it is today. We need to respect that work and the genetic diversity by protecting the old strains.

Whatever your favorite heirloom corn, you can be sure it originated in Mexico as agriculture was taking hold. The next time you have melted butter dripping off a corn cob and down your chin, give thanks to ancient farmers for turning a 12-kernel seed head into the multicolored, multipurpose crop that maize is today.

This is the second of a four-part series on the history of the Three Sisters — corn, beans, and squash. Read the others here:

From Ancient to Heirloom — The History of the Humble Bean

Similarly pleasing to see and to taste, heirloom beans have a long and colorful past.

Squash on the Scene: The Evolution of Cucurbits

Squash, pumpkins, zucchini, and their cousins all have deep roots in ancient North and South America.

Ancient Companion Planting: The Three Sisters

Squash, beans, and corn have a long history of being planted together to benefit each other, the soil, and the…


Originally published in the Summer 2017 issue of Heirloom Gardener Magazine.

In Mexico's cradle of corn, climate change leaves its mark

Diego Oré

TEHUACAN, Mexico (Reuters) - At least 9,000 years ago, humans began domesticating corn for the first time near Tehuacan, in the central Mexican state of Puebla, laying the foundation for permanent settlements in the Americas.

But in the past few years, more frequent and longer droughts have forced many farmers in the area to give up corn and other cereals in favor of alternatives requiring less water such as pistachio nuts or cactus.

Agricultural experts predict parts of Mexico will feel the effects of climate change more than many countries, not least because its location between two oceans and straddling the Tropic of Cancer expose it to weather volatility.

Sol Ortiz, director of the agriculture ministry’s climate change group noted that 75% of Mexico’s soil is already considered too dry to cultivate crops. In regions such as Tehuacan, temperatures may rise more than the global average.

“We know there are areas where the increase is going to be greater. That will obviously affect rain patterns, and in turn, agriculture and food security,” Ortiz said.

The area under corn cultivation in Tehuacan decreased 18% to about 40,000 hectares between 2015 and last year, a Reuters calculation using statistics by the agriculture ministry shows, outstripping a nationwide decline.

In the five years before that, the area planted with corn had been slowly increasing in Tehuacan.


Nationally, the area under corn cultivation declined 4% from 2015 to 7.4 million hectares last year. While factors leading farmers to switch crops are complex, in Tehuacan farmers and local officials describe fast-changing climate as a leading cause.

Mexico’s rainy season last year was the driest since 2011, which in turn was one of the driest on record, numbers from the country’s national water agency showed.

Climate change is expected to cause substantial declines in yields of corn globally, especially in the tropics, a 2018 study published in the U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science concluded.

There may be exceptions. The corn belt in the U.S. Midwest is so vast that one recent study concluded the expanses of lush fields were actually helping increase rainfall locally and also cut temperatures, thus allowing even more corn to be grown.

Under this model, intensive farming meant more moisture being released into the atmosphere from plants on a scale great enough to create more rainfall. The greater humidity also contributed to summers up to 1 degree Celsius cooler, the study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded.



STUNTED COBS

In Tehuacan, however, conditions are fast changing for the worse. In a field where dried out plants have been lingering in the dust since the last drought, farmer Porfirio Garcia, holding a stunted cob, was struggling to make sense of it all.


Porfirio Garcia looks at his dry corn field in Tepeteopan, state of Puebla, Mexico January 16, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

Corn has for thousands of years been a symbol of Mexican pride, a staple of local and national cuisine from tortillas to tamales and the backbone of civilizations that gave rise to modern Mexico. But climate change has jeopardized that.

Garcia, who has 12 children, half of them working with him on the farm, recalls how one hectare in some years yielded as many as four tonnes (8,800 lbs) of corn In the past five years, he said, with luck it yielded 700 kg (1,543 lbs).

“The corn harvest has shrunk because in the months of June, July, August and September there was no rain,” said Garcia, 59, who uses ancestral farming techniques to grow corn, beans and pumpkin, an ancient system called a “milpa”.

“Our lives center on corn so what do we do without it?”

Eusebio Olmedo, director of rural development, agriculture and livestock in Tehuacan, recalls that it began to get hotter at the turn of the millennium.

Having worked in the department for five years, Olmedo said the area used to be characterized by a “very pleasant, very benevolent” climate.

Last year was the warmest on record in the state of Puebla - where Tehuacan is located - with thermometers reaching an average maximum temperature of 26.8 Celsius (80 F). In 1985, the first year the available state records show, Puebla registered an average maximum temperature of 24.7 Celsius (76 F).

A 2016 study commissioned by the environment ministry and backed by the U.N. Development Program concluded climate change in Mexico will mean less rain, lower yields for basic grains such as corn, beans and wheat, as well as “unexpected effects on food security.”


“When rain patterns change, agriculture becomes risky,” Olmedo said.

Mexican corn farmers have suffered major shocks in the past - most notably the arrival of cheap imports from the United States under the NAFTA free trade agreement in the 1990s.

In the north of Mexico, where large corn fields are irrigated, climate change may initially have little impact, studies show.

But in the south, where the oldest corn strains on earth are grown using traditional methods without irrigation, the changing rain patterns and temperatures are already being felt.

Agricultural consulting group GCMA estimates Mexican corn production will continue to decline in 2020, and that corn imports mainly from the United States will reach a record 18 million tons.
ADAPT

Mexico is now the world’s second-largest corn importer thanks to a reliance on U.S. grain for animal feed. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador calls that “a contradiction” and has implemented programs to boost national production.

Garcia, however, chose to diversify into other crops, planting 300 trees of pistachio, a desert plant that can withstand temperatures between minus 10 and 40 degrees Celsius (14 F and 104 F).











Slideshow (9 Images)

Nearby farmer Natalio De Santiago also abandoned the corn that he, his father and his grandfather used to plant for other crops that require less water. Those include maguey, a raw ingredient for mezcal, a Mexican liquor.

“I stopped sowing (corn) because the weather is changing,” said De Santiago, 56. “Now I plant maguey because it needs less water.”

Wearing a cowboy hat to shield his face from the sun, he said he irrigates 400 maguey plants every month with a liter of water each. When he planted corn, he said, his crops needed four months of rain.

Others in the area gave up agriculture altogether and sold land to real estate developers.

In an attempt to stop this trend, local authorities developed a bank of native corn seeds more resistant to pests and that need less water.

“We have to adapt to climate change, and these are the best varieties to recover food self-sufficiency,” Olmedo said of the seeds.

Other government measures meant to help farmers adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change include agricultural insurance, alternative crops and campaigns to reduce agricultural burning.

“It’s very difficult to reverse the tendency to increase CO2 (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere,” said the agricultural ministry’s Ortiz. “That’s why we’re prioritizing adaptation.”


“Climate change is here to stay.” he added.

(Story refiles to fix spelling of mezcal)


Reporting by Diego Ore; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Alistair Bell
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Wildfires gripped Canada last year. Now, US farmers are feeling the burn

Stephen Starr in Clark county, Ohio
Thu, November 23, 2023 

Photograph: Wim Wiskerke/Alamy


It was early November and Scott Haerr still had 2,500 acres of corn to harvest on his farm in south-west Ohio.

The harvest should be much further down the road – a dry spring was followed by adequate summer rain and heat, and then a dry fall meant no obvious delays were in the forecast. But the crop, he said, just hadn’t ripened on cue.

Related: Food, soil, water: how the extinction of insects would transform our planet

“We knew that we were well behind the normal crop stage when [the corn plants] did not pollinate until at least 10 days to two weeks after we normally should have, last July,” says Haerr. “Usually by mid-September, our early planted corn is mature enough to harvest. This year it was hard to find anything ready by 1 October.”

Haerr thought he might have to pause harvesting. “The moisture levels are really high,” he said.

Haerr was initially puzzled at the slow maturation but believes he has hit on the culprit: smoke from wildfires in Canada that lingered over Ohio and the wider eastern corn belt for days last June and July – a critical time for corn plant development.

While the corn he is harvesting is currently yielding well, Haerr fears its high moisture content could push the remainder of his harvest into winter when bad weather could damage some or all of the remainder of his crop.

“The fear is a storm or heavy wind could down this, that the weather shuts us down before we get the work done,” he said.

For a time last June and July, 18 states from New York to Montana were under air quality alerts as more than 600 wildfires burned out of control in Canada, which suffered its worst ever wildfire season in 2023. While the smoke created breathing difficulties for thousands of people, the growing cycle of crops suffered too.

Today’s corn hybrids are carefully engineered with specific temperature conditions in mind, meaning minor or unexpected changes to weather can result in negative knock-on effects.

Data from Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a major seed company, shows that low growth periods last June correspond to days of heavy wildfire smoke over Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere that fueled low solar radiation corn depends on to grow.

Today, the corn harvest in Ohio is lagging more than 8% behind the five-year average, though it had been as much as 20%. Currently, harvest progress in states closest to some of the worst of last summer’s wildfire smoke – Wisconsin (65%), Michigan (52%) and Ohio (70%) – lags far behind the national average of 88%.

The fear is a storm or heavy wind could down this, that the weather shuts us down before we get the work done

Scott Haerr

Corn is one of the world’s most important grains. Last year, the US exported $18.57bn worth of corn, most of which went to China where it is used to feed pigs that are harvested for tens of millions of Chinese consumers.

America’s biggest crop, corn is also used for ethanol fuel, animal feed and in the production of countless foodstuffs. America’s Corn Belt is centered in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and other states close to Canada. Corn, a grass, is more sensitive to lower light than the other major US crop – soybeans – because it requires more photosynthesis.

With wildfires more likely affecting America’s Corn Belt as the planet warms, a combination of the wrong conditions could disrupt the growing of a cornerstone food source for millions of people.

“Climate change is increasing the risk of drought and wildfires in certain areas of the world,” said Aaron Wilson, state climatologist of Ohio with Ohio State University.

“What brought us the cooler than average temperatures this year was that northerly [air] flow out of Canada, well it so happens that also brought the wildfire smoke.”

Corn growers are facing another concern as winter approaches: weak corn stalks.

“The plant is predetermined to maximize yield so if there’s a shortcoming of photosynthesis [during the growing period], it’s going to rob that energy from sugars that were stored up in the stalk … making it more susceptible to stalk rot,” said Kyle Poling, a field agronomist at Pioneer.

With the windiest period of the year approaching, weak corn plants in the eastern corn belt are at increased risk of being downed.

Experts, however, note that lower temperatures caused by wildfire smoke are not always a negative for crops. Reduced solar radiation as a result of smoke can help slow moisture being drawn from the soil into the atmosphere.

Poling says that while wildfire smoke may have played an indirect role in delayed maturation last summer, other factors were at play, too. “The smoke acted as a barrier for radiant heat but there was also below average heat accumulation [on days] where we didn’t have any haze,” he says.

Freshly harvested corn kernels being loaded for transport to storage silos. Photograph: Alamy

So far, America’s 2023 corn harvest is set to return high yields. And corn growers can avoid having to harvest later in the year by choosing to plant seed hybrids that ripen more quickly.

But those corn types result in lower yields, reducing the overall profits of growers such as Haerr, who has a team of eight people – including two of his sons – working on this year’s harvest. Corn containing high moisture levels can be harvested, but farmers then face a difficult choice of selling at far lower prices or paying huge fuel costs to dry the grain to prevent it from spoiling.

Haerr wouldn’t speculate whether climate crisis has played a role in delaying his harvest, or whether he expects more wildfires in the future, though researchers say the climate crisis has more than doubled the likelihood of “extreme fire weather conditions” in eastern Canada.

Right now, he said his harvest would not be finished for some time. “We’re figuring that this year it’s going to be into December. We’re just hoping the weather doesn’t turn bad.”

US escalates trade dispute with Mexico over limits on genetically modified corn
Associated Press
Updated Thu, August 17, 2023

Central Illinois farmers deposit harvested corn on the ground outside a full grain elevator in Virginia, Ill. The U.S. government said Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023, it is formally requesting a dispute settlement panel in its ongoing row with Mexico over its limits on genetically modified corn.

 (AP Photo/Seth Perlman, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)


MEXICO CITY (AP) — The U.S. government said Thursday it is formally requesting a dispute settlement panel in its ongoing row with Mexico over its limits on genetically modified corn.

Mexico's Economy Department said it had received the notification and would defend its position. It claimed in a statement that “the measures under debate had no effect on trade,” and thus do not violate the United States-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, known as the USMCA.

The U.S. Trade Representatives Office, or USTR, objected to Mexico’s ban on GM corn for human consumption and plans to eventually ban it as animal feed.

The USTR said in a statement that “Mexico’s measures are not based on science and undermine the market access it agreed to provide in the USMCA."

The panel of experts will now be selected and will have about half a year to study the complaint and release its findings. Trade sanctions could follow if Mexico is found to have violated the U.S.-Mexico Canada free trade agreement.

The U.S. government said in June that talks with the Mexican government on the issue had failed to yield results.

Mexico wants to ban biotech corn for human consumption and perhaps eventually ban it for animal feed as well, something that both its northern partners say would damage trade and violate USMCA requirements that any health or safety standards be based on scientific evidence.

Mexico is the leading importer of U.S. yellow corn, most of which is genetically modified. Almost all is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens in Mexico, because Mexico doesn’t grow enough feed corn. Corn for human consumption in Mexico is almost entirely domestically-grown white corn, though corn-meal chips or other processed products could potentially contain GM corn.

Mexico argues biotech corn may have health effects, even when used as fodder, but hasn’t yet presented proof.

Mexico had previously appeared eager to avoid a major showdown with the United States on the corn issue — but not eager enough to completely drop talk of any ban.

In February, Mexico’s Economy Department issued new rules that dropped the date for substituting imports of GM feed corn. The new rules say Mexican authorities will carry out “the gradual substitution” of GM feed and milled corn, but sets no date for doing so and says potential health issues will be the subject of study by Mexican experts “with health authorities from other countries.”

Under a previous version of the rules, some U.S. growers worried a GM feed corn ban could happen as soon as 2024 or 2025.

While the date was dropped, the language remained in the rules about eventually substituting GM corn, something that could cause prices for meat to skyrocket in Mexico, where inflation is already high.

U.S. farmers have worried about the potential loss of the single biggest export market for U.S. corn. Mexico has been importing GM feed corn from the U.S. for years, buying about $3 billion worth annually.

Experts Warn of Toxins in GM Corn Amid US-Mexico Trade Dispute

"The Mexican government is both wise and on solid ground in refusing to allow its people to participate in the experiment that the U.S. government is seeking to impose."

Farmer Arnulfo Melo shows harvested corn from his organic field in Milpa Alta, Mexico, on October 18, 2021, months after the Mexican government banned genetically modified corn for human consumption.
(Photo: Rodrigo Arangua/AFP via Getty Images)


JESSICA CORBETT
Mar 26, 2024
COMMON  DREAMS

Friends of the Earth U.S. on Monday released a brief backing Mexico's ban on genetically modified corn for human consumption, which the green group recently submitted to a dispute settlement panel charged with considering the U.S. government's challenge to the policy.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced plans to phase out the herbicide glyphosate as well as genetically modified (GM) or genetically engineered (GE) corn in 2020. Last year he issued an updated decree making clear the ban does not apply to corn imports for livestock feed and industrial use. Still, the Biden administration objected and, after fruitless formal negotiations, requested the panel under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

"The U.S. government has not presented an 'appropriate' risk assessment to the tribunal as called for in the USMCA dispute because such an assessment has never been done in the U.S. or anywhere in the world," said agricultural economist Charles Benbrook, who wrote the brief with Kendra Klein, director of science at Friends of the Earth U.S.

"The U.S. is, in effect, asking Mexico to trust the completeness and accuracy of the initial GE corn safety assessments carried out 15 to 30 years ago by the companies working to bring GE corn events to market."

The group's 13-page brief lays out health concerns related to GM corn and glyphosate, and the shortcomings of U.S. analyses and policies. It also stresses the stakes of the panel's decision, highlighting that "corn is the caloric backbone of the Mexican food supply, accounting, on average, for 50% of the calories and protein in the Mexican diet."

Blasting the Biden administration's case statement to the panel as "seriously deficient," Klein said Monday that "it lacks basic information about the toxins expressed in contemporary GMO corn varieties and their levels. The U.S. submission also ignores dozens of studies linking the insecticidal toxins and glyphosate residues found in GMO corn to adverse impacts on public health."

The brief explains that "since the commercial introduction of GE corn in 1996 and event-specific approvals in the 1990s and 2000s, dramatic changes have occurred in corn production systems. There has been an approximate fourfold increase in the number of toxins and pesticides applied on the average hectare of contemporary GE industrial corn compared to the early 1990s. Unfortunately, this upward trend is bound to continue, and may accelerate."

The U.S. statement's assurances about risks from Bacillus thuringiensis or vegetative insecticidal protein (Bt/VIP) residues "are not based on data and science," the brief warns.

"The U.S. is, in effect, asking Mexico to trust the completeness and accuracy of the initial GE corn safety assessments carried out 15 to 30 years ago by the companies working to bring GE corn events to market," the document says. "The Mexican government is both wise and on solid ground in refusing to allow its people to participate in the experiment that the U.S. government is seeking to impose on Mexico."

"The absence of any systematic monitoring of human exposure levels to Bt/VIP toxins and herbicides from consumption of corn-based foods is regrettable," the brief adds. "It is also unfortunate that the U.S. government rejected the Mexican proposal to jointly design and carry out a modern battery of studies able to overcome gaps in knowledge regarding GE corn impacts."

"The U.S. government's case against Mexico has no more scientific merit than its sham GMO regulatory regime, and should be rejected by the USMCA dispute resolution panel."

Friends of the Earth isn't the only U.S.-based group formally supporting the Mexican government in the USMCA process. The Center for Food Safety sent a 10-page submission by science director Bill Freese, an expert on biotech regulation, to the panel on March 15. His analysis addresses U.S. regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) along with the risks of GM corn and glyphosate.

"GMO regulation in the U.S. was crafted by Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, and is a critical part of our government's promotion of the biotechnology industry," Freese said last week, referring to the company known for the glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup. "The aim is to quell concerns and promote acceptance of GMOs, domestically and abroad, rather than critically evaluate potential toxicity or allergenicity."

His submission notes that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "does not require a GE plant developer to do anything prior to marketing its GE crop or food derived from it. Instead, FDA operates what it calls a voluntary consultation program that is designed to enhance consumer confidence and speed GE crops to market."

"When governmental review is optional; and even when it's conducted, starts and ends with the regulated company's safety assurance—what's the point?" Freese asked. "Clearly, it's the PR value of a governmental rubber stamp."

"The Mexican government's prohibition of GM corn for tortillas and other masa corn products is fully justified," he asserted. "The U.S. government's case against Mexico has no more scientific merit than its sham GMO regulatory regime, and should be rejected by the USMCA dispute resolution panel."

In a Common Dreams opinion piece last week, Ernesto Hernández-López, a law professor at Chapman University in California, pointed out that Mexico's recent submission to the panel also "offers scientific proof and lots of it," including "over 150 scientific studies, referred to in peer-review journals, systemic research reviews, and more."

"Mexico incorporates perspectives from toxicology, pediatrics, plant biology, hematology, epidemiology, public health, and data mining, to name a few," he wrote. "This clearly and loudly responds to American persistence. The practical result: American leaders cannot claim there is no science supporting the decree. They may disagree with or dislike the findings, but there is proof."

The Biden administration's effort to quash the Mexican policy notably comes despite the lack of impact on trade. While implementing its ban last year, "Mexico also made its largest corn purchase from the U.S., 15.3 million metric tons," National Geographicreported last month.

Kenneth Smith Ramos, former Mexican chief negotiator for the USMCA, told the outlet that "right now, it may not have a big economic impact because what Mexico is using to produce flour, cornmeal, and tortillas is a very small percentage of their overall imports; but that does not mean the U.S. is not concerned with this being the tip of the iceberg."

Climate change could spell the end for Midwestern corn, study finds

Ben Adler
·Senior Editor
Wed, June 1, 2022


The midwestern Corn Belt — which roughly covers parts of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas — will be “unsuitable” for cultivating corn by 2100 if climate change continues on its current trajectory, a new study finds.

“The future climate conditions … will significantly reshape biophysical suitability across the Central and Eastern U.S., causing a near collapse of corn cultivation in the Midwestern U.S. by 2100,” the study, published in Environmental Research Letters, concludes.

Using climate and soil data, Emory University environmental studies professor Emily Burchfield modeled where crops would be successfully grown in a warmer future. Burchfield found that under scenarios with high or moderate greenhouse gas emissions, the climatic conditions necessary to grow corn, soy, alfalfa and wheat will all shift notably northward, “with the Corn Belt becoming unsuitable to the cultivation of corn by 2100.”

Cornstalk residue in a strip-tilled Nebraska farm field in 2021. (Lukas Fricke/Handout via Reuters)

Burchfield’s paper suggests that changes to the way crops are grown will be necessary to continue corn farming in the United States.

“These projections may be pessimistic because they don’t account for all of the ways that technology may help farmers adapt and rise to the challenge,” Burchfield said in a press release from Emory.

In fact, Midwestern farmers have already been successfully adapting to climate change. Due to a variety of technological advances, U.S. farmers today harvest more than five times as much corn per acre as farmers did 100 years ago. Some of these changes, according to a 2018 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, have been helpful to combating rising temperatures. For example, because plants have a cooling effect on their local environment, planting closer together has reduced the effects of global warming on corn crops. Farmers also have adjusted to higher temperatures by planting crops earlier in the season and cross-breeding more with more heat-tolerant Mexican varieties of corn.

As a result, and in part because of the usual annual variation in weather, many in the Midwestern corn industry haven’t necessarily experienced any harmful impacts from climate change yet, although some note that rainfall patterns have been fairly extreme in recent years. Some U.S. farmers stopped planting corn after punishing droughts in 2007 and 2012.

Corn crop toward end of season, with brown, dead leaves. (Edwin Remsburg/VW Pics via Getty Images)

“It’s hard to gauge what actually is the trend,” Taylor Moreland, owner of Moreland Seed & Soil in Centralia, Mo., told Yahoo News. “In 2012, that was a horrible drought, Midwest-wide, that was a terrible drought and there were massive losses across most farms. 2013 was kind of a drought as well. And then ’14 was awesome, ’15 was extremely wet, to the point where a lot of corn couldn’t get planted at all because if the ground is wet you can’t plant ... ’16 was another great year, ’17 was a great year, ’18 was a great year. And then, really, the past three years have been all so wet, where you typically want to plant corn in April and most farmers around here haven’t been able to plant all their corn yet this year at all, because it’s been so wet.”

But Moreland, who grew up on a farm in Missouri, pointed out that the Midwest has always seen wide fluctuations in weather.

“The weather patterns do tend to change,” he said. “If you track back before I was doing this, we had droughts, we had wet years, we had hot years. I remember my grandpa talking about this, how there were a couple years in a row where they’d have crops burn up and the family would be broke.”

To the extent that farming is given up altogether in some areas, that could actually help mitigate climate change, as former farms could, in theory, become valuable sinks for absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — but only if the land is allowed to lie fallow without being redeveloped for half a century or more, according to a new study in the journal Science Advances.

A field of pistachios on a California farm. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

While the current Corn Belt could lose its titular crop, places like northern Minnesota and parts of Canada could become well suited to growing corn for the first time.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has found that droughts, temperature extremes and more prevalent pests will decrease agricultural yields. The IPCC calls for swift, massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to avert catastrophic climate change and the widespread famine that could result.

Burchfield said that American farms will be more resilient against climate change if they switch from monoculture — a single commodity crop planted in rows — to farms that integrate more diverse crops.

“Relying on technology alone is a really risky way to approach the problem,” Burchfield said. “If we continue to push against biophysical realities, we will eventually reach ecological collapse.”

Cahokia's rise parallels onset of corn agriculture

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU

 

IMAGE: CORN CULTIVATION BEGAN IN THE VICINITY OF THE CITY OF CAHOKIA BETWEEN A.D. 900 AND 1000, RESEARCHERS REPORT IN A NEW STUDY. ITS ARRIVAL MAY HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE ABRUPT... view more 

CREDIT: GRAPHIC BY DIANA YATES

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Corn cultivation spread from Mesoamerica to what is now the American Southwest by about 4000 B.C., but how and when the crop made it to other parts of North America is still a subject of debate. In a new study, scientists report that corn was not grown in the ancient metropolis of Cahokia until sometime between A.D. 900 and 1000, a relatively late date that corresponds to the start of the city's rapid expansion.

The findings are published in the journal American Antiquity.

The research team determined the age of charred corn kernels found in homes, shrines and other archaeological contexts in and around Cahokia. The researchers also looked at carbon isotopes in the teeth and bones of 108 humans and 15 dogs buried in the vicinity.

Carbon-isotope ratios differ among food sources, with isotope ratios of corn being significantly higher than those of almost all other native plant species in the region. By analyzing the ratio of carbon 12 to carbon 13 in teeth and bones, the team determined the relative proportion of different types of foods the people of Cahokia ate in different time periods.

The corn remnants and isotope analyses revealed that corn consumption began in Cahokia between 900 and 1000. This was just before the city grew into a major metropolis.

"There's been an idea that corn came to the central Mississippi River valley at about the time of Christ, and the evolution of maize in this part of the world was really, really slow," said retired state archaeologist Thomas Emerson, who led the study. "But this Cahokia data is saying that no, actually, corn arrived here very late. And in fact, corn may be the foundation of the city."

The research team included Illinois State Archaeological Survey archaeobotanist Mary Simon; bioarchaeologist Kristin Hedman; radiocarbon dating analyst Matthew Fort; and former graduate student Kelsey Witt, now a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University.

Beginning in about 1050, Cahokia grew from "a little village of a few hundred people to part of a city with 5,000 to 10,000 people in an archaeological instant," Emerson said. The population eventually expanded to at least 40,000. This early experiment in urban living was short-lived, however. By 1350, after a period of drought and civil strife, most of the city's population had dispersed.

Scientists who theorize that corn came to the central Mississippi River valley early in the first millennium A.D. are overlooking the fact that the plant had to adapt to a completely different light and temperature regime before it could be cultivated in the higher latitudes, said Simon, who conducted an exhaustive analysis of corn kernels found at Cahokia and elsewhere in the Midwest.

"Corn was originally cultivated in Mesoamerica," she said. "Its flowering time and production time are controlled by the amount of sunlight it gets. When it got up into this region, its flowering was no longer corresponding to the available daylight. If you planted it in the spring, it wouldn't even start to flower until August, and winter would set in before you could harvest your crop."

The plant had to evolve to survive in this northerly climate, Simon said.

"It was probably only marginally adapted to high latitudes in what is now the southwestern United States by 0 A.D.," she said. "So, the potential for successful cultivation in the Midwest at this early date is highly problematic."

When they analyzed the carbon isotopes in the teeth and bones of 108 individuals buried in Cahokia between 600 and 1400, researchers saw a signature consistent with corn consumption beginning abruptly between 950 and 1000, Hedman said. The data from dogs buried at and near Cahokia also corresponded to this timeline.

"That's where you see this big jump in the appearance of corn in the diet," Hedman said. "This correlates very closely with what Mary Simon is finding with the dates on the maize."

"Between 900 and 1000 is also when you start to see a real shift in the culture of Cahokia," Emerson said. "This was the beginning of mound construction. There was a massive growth of population and a dramatic shift in ideology with the appearance of fertility iconography."

Artifacts uncovered from Cahokia include flint-clay figurines of women engaged in agricultural activities and vessels marked with symbols of water and fertility. Some of the items depict crops such as sunflowers and squash that predated the arrival of corn.

"It wasn't like the Cahokians didn't already have an agricultural base when corn arrived on the scene," Simon said. "They were preadapted to the whole idea of cultivation."

The absence of corn iconography in artifacts from the city reflects corn's status as a relative newcomer to the region at the time Cahokia first flourished, Emerson said.

Built near present-day St. Louis, the ancient city of Cahokia was an early experiment in urban living.

###

The Illinois Department of Transportation and ISAS supported this research. ISAS is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Editor's notes:

The paper "Isotopic confirmation of the timing and intensity of maize consumption in Greater Cahokia" is available online and from the U. of I. News Bureau

GMO IS OMG BACKWARDS

Mexico denies permit for new GMO corn variety, first time ever

David Alire Garcia and Adriana Barrera
Fri, October 8, 2021

MEXICO CITY, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Mexican health safety regulators have rejected a new variety of GMO corn for the first time, according to German conglomerate Bayer which makes the grain and blasted the decision, saying it was looking into its legal options.

Mexico, birthplace of modern corn, has never permitted the commercial-scale cultivation of GMO corn but has for decades allowed such varieties to be imported, mostly from U.S. farmers and overwhelmingly used to fatten livestock.

Mexican regulators did not confirm the decision and also did not reply to several requests for comment. Regulators must approve each new variety developed by seed companies before crops grown from them can later be imported.

In late August, heath regulator Cofepris rejected a permit for a new GMO corn variety sought by pharmaceutical and crop science giant Bayer, according to data from Mexico's National Farm Council (CNA) later confirmed by the company.

The regulator determined that the new seed variety was designed to tolerate weed-killer glyphosate, adding it considers the widely used herbicide dangerous and said its rejection was based on a "precautionary principle," the data showed.

The Cofepris ruling was never publicly disclosed, and its press office did not respond to requests for comment.

CNA President Juan Cortina said in an interview that Mexican corn importers will begin to feel the impact from the rejection as soon as next year.

"This is the first obstacle, which isn't immediate, but it's coming," he said, pointing to seven other pending GMO corn seed permits that have been waiting from between 14 to 34 months for a resolution. He said he believed the decision violated the USMCA North American trade agreement.

Neither Mexico's economy ministry, responsible for international trade, or the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in Washington, immediately responded to a request for comment on Cortina's allegation.

While regulators worldwide have determined glyphosate to be safe, Bayer agreed last year to settle nearly 100,000 U.S. lawsuits for $9.6 billion, while denying claims that the herbicide caused cancer. In February, it struck a $2 billion settlement to resolve future legal claims that glyphosate causes cancer.

In a statement sent to Reuters, Bayer said it was disappointed by the regulator's decision which it described as "unscientific." The company said regulatory delays and the possibility of additional permit denials could have a "devastating impact" on Mexican supply chains.

Bayer said GMO crops have undergone more safety tests than "any other crop in the history of agriculture" and have been judged safe.

In the past, the Mexican government has approved some 90 GMO corn varieties for import, among nearly 170 total approvals for GMO seeds including cotton and soybeans. But under President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office in late 2018, no GMO seeds have been approved by Cofepris.

Last year, Mexico imported more than 16 million tonnes of corn from U.S. suppliers, almost all of it grown from GMO varieties.

Cortina said this year the country was poised to import "more than 19 million tonnes," which would mark an all-time record, even as the government pledges to boost domestic production.

Mexico is mostly self-sufficient in its production of white corn, which is used to make the country's staple tortillas, but depends heavily on yellow corn imports for both livestock feed as well as numerous industrial uses like making cereals and sauces.

Lopez Obrador issued a decree late last year that seeks to ban by 2024 both glyphosate and GMO corn for human consumption, but officials have yet to clarify if the ban would apply to livestock feed or the industrial demand.

Deputy Agriculture Minister Victor Suarez, an influential backer of the decree, said last month that the government is now aiming to cut corn imports by half by 2024.

"Right now, I don't think it's going down," said Cortina, referring to the country's demand for imported corn.

He pointed to official agriculture ministry data showing that domestic corn production is down more than 5% during the first six months of this year. 

(Reporting by David Alire Garcia and Adriana Barrera; Additional reporting by David Lawder in Washington; Editing by David Gregorio)

Bayer blasts 'unscientific' rejection by Mexican regulator of GMO corn permit

David Alire Garcia
Fri, October 8, 2021

FILE PHOTO: The historic headquarters of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG is pictured in Leverkusen

BAYER OFFICE DURING WWII

By David Alire Garcia

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Bayer is evaluating its legal options after Mexican health regulators for the first time rejected a GMO corn permit it was seeking, the German pharmaceutical and crop science giant said in a statement to Reuters on Friday, blasting the decision as "unscientific."

Reuters reported earlier in the day that regulator Cofepris rejected the corn permit for future import as the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador hardens its opposition to genetically modified crops.

"We are disappointed with the unscientific reasons that Cofepris used to deny the authorization," the statement said, identifying the rejected corn variety as using its proprietary HT3 x SmartStax Pro technology.

Bayer stressed that the permit denial does not affect its current business, noting that last year the company stopped work on its HT3 hybrid corn varieties due to regulatory delays in the European Union in favor of a new HT4 line which the company expects to launch later this decade.

Bayer nonetheless criticized what it described as continuous regulatory delays with Cofepris as well as the possibility of additional permit denials that could have a "devastating impact" on Mexican supply chains.

The company said genetically modified crops including corn have undergone more safety tests than "any other crop in the history of agriculture" and have been judged safe for humans, animals and the environment.

The Cofepris press office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Lopez Obrador issued a controversial decree at the end of last year that outlined a three-year plan to ban the weed killer glyphosate and GMO corn for human consumption.

Industry associations have sharply criticized the plan and have sought unsuccessfully to persuade judges to strike it down, arguing that it risks a trade dispute with the United States. If the ban is interpreted to include animal feed or other industrial uses, they say it will ultimately hit consumers with higher food prices.

The planned prohibition, however, is popular with environmentalists and health-food advocates who argue that spraying glyphosate on the GMO crops designed to tolerate them is indeed harmful.

Glyphosate was pioneered by the Roundup brand of weed killers from agrochemical company Monsanto, which was bought by Bayer as part of a $63 billion acquisition in 2018.

(Reporting by David Alire Garcia in Mexico City;Editing by Christian Plumb and Matthew Lewis)