The News
January 20, 2002
By Reed Lindsay

Last May, scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, informed the government they had found genetically-modified (GM) corn in the mountains of Oaxaca, eight months later, President Vicente Fox has yet to announce how his administration will respond.

In the absence of an official position, top officials from both the Agriculture Secretariat (Sagarpa) and Environment Secretariat (Semarnat) have voiced opinions on the matter. Far from coinciding, they have been markedly discordant.

Environment Secretary Victor Lichtinger has warned of the threat the discovery poses to the grain's genetic diversity on the lands where it was first domesticated by humans thousands of years ago. For their part, the Sagarpa brass have continued to defend and promote the application of genetic engineering.

And in striking contrast to the caution taken by Semarnat, Sagarpa officials have maintained the presence of GM corn in Mexico has not been "scientifically" proven.

The difference in opinion between the two secretariats marks the more protaganistic role Semarnat has assumed since Fox assumed office 13 months ago, ending 71-years of one-party rule.

"There has been a radical change with this administration. The former Semarnat secretary didn't even consider GM corn an environmental issue," said Greenpeace Mexico spokesperson Hector Magallan in an interview Friday. "As a result, there is a clear confrontation between the Sagarpa and the Semarnat."

In September, Greenpeace made public the presence of GM corn after being informed by government officials.

The next week, Lichtinger told legislators the discovery indicated the risks of the government's current policy for conserving native corn varieties, and said "immediate actions" were necessary.

Scientists from the National Politechnical Institute (INP) and the National Ecology Institute (INE), the academic arm of Semarnat, later confirmed the findings of the Berkeley scientists.

Sagarpa officials, however, have refused to concede GM corn is being grown in Mexico.

Less than a month after Lichtinger's appearance before Congress, Agriculture Secretary Javier Usabiaga told senators "no case of contamination has been proven scientifically."

Agriculture Undersecretary Victor Manuel Villalobos, who has openly argued the merits of genetic engineering, last month suggested the genetically modified DNA found by the Berkeley scientists was still being studied, and could have been the result of a virus.

Villalobos said Sagarpa was waiting for a still-unreleased study being conducted by the Inter-Secretarial Commission on Biosecurity and Genetically Modified Organisms (Cibiogem).

"It is absolutely unacceptable, ridiculous and irresponsible for a government official to deny the presence of genetically engineered corn," INE President Exequiel Ezcurra told a Mexico City newspaper last October.

Mexico currently has a moratorium on the cultivation of genetically engineered corn, but U.S. imports go unscreened at the border. GM corn is legal and grown on a massive scale in the United States.