Analysts: Mexico’s GMO corn policy could expand premium non-GMO market for U.S. farmers

Mexico’s proposed restrictions on genetically engineered corn offer U.S. farmers premium opportunities to grow non-GMO corn, according to analysts who say U.S. overbearing trade policy to Mexico ignores potential benefits to those farmers.

During a seminar in May hosted by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minneapolis-based think tank focused on sustainable food and agriculture policy that has backed Mexico’s position in the dispute, analysts said the decree could harm large companies that sell genetically engineered seeds but that U.S. farmers stood to gain if they shifted to Mexico’s preferred varieties of corn.

“It’s our belief that this opposition primarily protects the major seed and agrochemical corporations who would really have the most to lose if a substantial number of American corn farmers were to shift to non-GM production,” said Angela Huffman, president of the nonprofit Farm Action. The organization focuses on building “fair competition in rural America,” according to its website.

According to Ken Roseboro, editor and publisher of the Organic & Non-GMO Report, a publication focused on the non-GMO market, the latest price premiums are between $.30 to $1 a bushel for non-GMO white corn and between $.20 and $.30 for non-GM feed grain.

“There’s a strong $40 billion non-GMO market in the U.S., and non-GMO grain suppliers, seed companies and farmers would be happy to supply Mexico with non-GMO white and yellow corn,” Roseboro said, charging that “U.S. commodity groups and trade officials” were “ignoring a fundamental principle of business—business common sense—which is to give the customer what they want.”

Source: World Trade Online

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Organic & Non-GMO Insights June 2024