By Julie Tomascik
Editor

A hearing is scheduled for late June to discuss the United States’ dispute with Mexico’s controversial biotech corn policies.

“We fully expect on the timeline we’re on to resolve the case with Mexico this year,” Doug McKalip, the chief U.S. agricultural negotiator said in a speech at the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture’s annual winter meeting.

The final report from the three-day hearing is expected in November.

“This (case) is about a lot more than biotech corn. It’s about making sure that nations adhere to the provisions of the trade agreements they’ve already signed and making sure we stick to science as the underpinning of trade,” McKalip said. “That’s super important because, quite frankly, Mexico has adopted a decree that is not in line with science and doesn’t honor the fact that the government regulators should perform risk assessments and that we should make determinations about imports and exports based upon the work of those scientists.”

The U.S. requested the dispute panel under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) last August.

The dispute centers on Mexico’s ban on imports of genetically modified white corn for human consumption and the country’s plans to ban all biotech corn for human food and livestock feed.

Mexico first issued a decree to limit the import of genetically modified corn in 2020.

Although Mexico is mostly self-sufficient in white corn, the country depends on the U.S. for the majority of its yellow corn supply. Shipments to Mexico make up nearly 30% of U.S. corn exports, and the country is the largest export market for U.S. corn.

Mexico buys about $5 billion of U.S. genetically modified corn each year, mainly for livestock feed.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. exported 15.4 million metric tons of corn to Mexico in 2022. Of that, about 1.6 million was white corn.