The Mexican government has rejected the first three requests of transition of the experimental to the pilot phase for GE maize trials. The official notice indicates that to guarantee protection to the biological diversity more information is needed than supplied in the applications.

experts say Mexico’s native varieties are themselves under peril — from economics and genetic contamination — potentially depriving humans of a crucial resource. Farmers are punished at the marketplace for selling native corn, and some types are dwindling from use. Perhaps more significantly, genetically modified corn is drifting southward and mingling with native varieties, potentially bringing unexpected aberrations and even possible extinction.

Authorities in Mexico have denied an application from seed giant Monsanto Co. to expand to pilot planting projects of genetically modified corn in northern Mexico, arguing that more experimental planting is needed to ensure the GM crops won’t affect native corn varieties. [...] Reynaldo Alvarez Morales said Wednesday companies will have to plan at least another cycle of small plots of about 2 acres (1 hectare), before they can move on to ”pilot” plots of as much as 50 hectares (124 acres).

The federal authorities would be entrusted with regulating maize-based ethanol in case of food emergencies, yield fluctuations or other phenomena that could lead to maize shortages or stockpiling, periodically reviewing the grain’s supply. ”It’s madness whose sole purpose is to enrich the big farmers,” said Suárez. ”We are in the middle of this foolishness, and with 20 percent of the Mexican population living in extreme poverty and with 45 percent of the food imported, we enter into this scheme of wanting to produce ethanol using a staple food,” he said. ”Furthermore, without subsidies, ethanol is not economically profitable.”

Mexico, the birthplace of corn, is edging toward the use of genetically modified varieties to lower its dependence on imports, but strong opposition among some growers and environmentalists, who see altered corn as a threat to native strains, has kept the wheels turning slowly. Monsanto Co., DuPont Co.'s Pioneer Hi-Bred unit and Dow Chemical Co,'s Dow AgroSciences recently completed small, controlled experiments in northern Mexico with genetically modified corn, and are seeking government authorization to enter a "pre-commercial" phase, expanding the growing area to nearly 500 acres from 35 acres.

Genetically modified corn is trickling into Mexico after overcoming years of legal barriers, but where some farmers see the promise of reduced imports others see a threat to their heritage. For years the revered status of corn in Mexico, widely believed to be the birthplace of the grain, has made the country hesitant to adopt transgenic maize seeds.

On September 18, 2001, the Mexican environment minister announced that his experts had done tests in 22 farming communities and found contaminated corn in 13 of them, with a level of contamination between 3 and 10 per cent. A few months later Ignacio Chapela and David Quist became a focus of attention, probably because of the reputation of Nature, which published their article in late November. When they’d submitted the article to the journal eight months earlier, the two scientists had received compliments on the quality of their study, and the article was sent to four reviewers, who approved it. But as a local paper, the East Bay Express, pointed out in May 2002: ”No one could have predicted the magnitude of the controversy to come.” The result was a veritable media lynching, largely organised from St Louis.

”Poor Mexico – so far from God and so close to the United States!” Porfirio Diaz, the iron-fisted Mexican general, famously quipped. To the peasant corn farmers and green activists who protested in the streets after the Mexican government reversed its ban on growing genetically modified foods and approved experimental planting of gene-spliced corn crops in the north of the country, it must seem like the United States draws ever closer.

Corn is in danger of becoming genetically modified, which could put at risk the preservation of germplasm of the corn races of Mexico. Mexico City’s program aims to ensure that situ races of corn, commonly called Creole, are conserved and protected through the identification of variables that affect their production. The program also will detect genetically modified or transgenic corn in conservation lands.

Scientists have produced new strains of maize that could cut vitamin A deficiency among people in developing countries. Developed using traditional breeding methods, the vitamin-fortified maize could be introduced instead of maize modified by genetic engineering, a process that continues to face objections.