IATP published this article after I returned from Mexico to the U.S. escalation of its trade dispute over genetically modified corn, as monocultures of the genetically modified mind in the U.S. confront the precautionary science of diversity and public health in Mexico.

IPS News

On June 2, the U.S. government escalated its conflict with Mexico over that country’s restrictions on genetically modified corn, initiating the formal dispute-resolution process under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). It is only the latest in a decades-long U.S. assault on Mexico’s food sovereignty using the blunt instrument of a trade agreement that has inundated Mexico with cheap corn, wheat, and other staples, undermining Mexico’s ability to produce its own food. (Also available in Spanish.)

What is agricultural dumping? This primer explains the unfair trade practice. From:

Swimming Against the Tide: Mexico’s quest for food sovereignty in the face of U.S. agricultural dumping, Appendix 2, by Timothy A. Wise, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy Report, May 2023.

https://www.iatp.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/swimming-against-tide.2.pdf

Not only is the U.S. government currently disputing Mexico's decision to restrict some uses of genetically modified corn, but it has also contributed to Mexico's levels of import dependence on key staples, such as corn, wheat, beans, rice and dairy. A new report demonstrates that the U.S.' practice of agricultural dumping of cheap exports into Mexico has hampered the Mexican government’s efforts to improve food self-sufficiency. 

Read the full report or executive summary in English or Spanish

Food Tank

On March 29, the Mexican government laid out the science behind its GMO corn restrictions in an impressive virtual conference organized by CONACYT, the government’s highest science body. Hopefully U.S. trade officials were watching. The U.S. stance may be unequivocal, but the science is anything but settled. Particularly the science of precaution.

Chapter 7 of Eating Tomorrow, excerpted with permission

As controversy rages over Mexico’s determination to restrict the planting and importation of genetically modified corn, this chapter of Eating Tomorrow chronicles the former Mexican government’s attempt to allow Monsanto and other multinational seed companies to grow GM corn in Mexico, putting the country’s rich store of native corn at risk of what critics decried as “genetic pollution.” The effort was stopped by a determined alliance of farmer, environmental, and consumer groups, and now supported by a Mexican government committed to food soversignty.

Food Tank

On January 9, President Joe Biden will travel to Mexico City to meet with Canada's Justin Trudeau and Mexico's Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador in an occasional "Three Amigos" summit. One contentious item on the agenda is Mexico's looming restriction on imports of genetically modified corn. Agribusiness leaders have stoked alarms about the economic and food-security impacts, but as I explain in Food Tank there is little cause for alarm. CropLife and other agribusiness interests commissioned an "independent" economic study to stoke fear. (A version of this article appears in Spanish in La Jornada del Campo.)

IATP Policy Brief

As Mexico and the US continue to negotiate trade issues related to Mexico’s planned restrictions on imports of genetically modified corn, agribusiness and biotechnology organizations sponsored a study that claims there will be huge economic damage from Mexico’s actions. Wise identifies the many false assumptions that produce inflated estimates of harm.

Timothy A. Wise and Jomo Kwame Sundaram, IPS News

Despite its dismal record, the Gates Foundation-sponsored Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) announced a new five-year strategy in September after rebranding itself by dropping ‘Green Revolution’ from its name. Instead of learning from experience and changing its approach accordingly, AGRA’s new strategy promises more of the same. Ignoring evidence, criticisms and civil society pleas and demands, the Gates Foundation has committed another $200 million to its new five-year plan, bringing its total contribution to around $900 million.

Food Tank

It is remarkable that a program enshrined in so much mythology over so many years is now being shunned by some of the most powerful mainstream agricultural development donors. AGRA’s website still offers no explanation for dropping “green revolution” from its name, and officials did not respond to requests for comment or clarification. It certainly suggests that AGRA and its donors are concealing their retreat from a failing strategy.

The Nation (Kenya)

With this new plan, AGRA may well be building on the strengths identified in a donor evaluation: strengthening markets, research, state capacity, and the private sector, especially seeds. But it accentuates the flaws, doing even less to ensure that such achievements translate into improvements for farmers.

Daily Nation (Kenya)

Rising fertilizer prices and uncertain supplies are bringing promoters of Africa's Green Revolution face-to-face with a food crisis very much of their own making. Inorganic fertilizers, the supposed catalyst for Africa's productivity revolution, have been a bust, and now they are too expensive for governments to subsidize or farmers to buy.

Food Tank

On April 27, three members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee wrote to the co-chairs of the House Appropriations Committee expressing “serious concern about U.S. funding for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).” The letter, signed by Democratic Representatives Sara Jacobs, Tom Malinowski, and Ilhan Omar, came on the heels of a March 30 briefing by African civil society and faith leaders, who called on Congress to cut funding to an initiative that, in their words, “has done more harm than good” since it was founded 16 years ago.

Down to Earth India

Some governments, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are reforming their seed laws in ways that make it harder for farmers to save, exchange and sell their seeds. Their agenda is certainly to corporatise the seed sector. They have decided that farmer-managed seed systems are too unproductive. They are wrong. African organisations have proven that careful seed selection can improve productivity and improved farming practices can enhance soil fertility without heavy reliance on synthetic fertilisers. The real beneficiaries of the input subsidies are seed and fertiliser companies, which would have no markets for their products if not for government funds.

Mongabay

A critical new donor-funded evaluation of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has confirmed what African civil society and faith leaders have claimed: “AGRA did not meet its headline goal of increased incomes and food security for 9 million smallholders.” The evaluation should be a wake up call, and not just for the private and bilateral donors that have bankrolled this 15-year-old effort to the tune of $1 billion. It should also rouse African governments to repurpose their agricultural subsidies from the Green Revolution package of commercial seeds and fertilizers to agroecology and other low-cost, low-input approaches. They have been providing as much as $1 billion per year for such input subsidies.

IATP Blog

A new donor-commissioned evaluation of the controversial Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) reveals serious shortcomings in the 15-year-old initiative’s efforts to “catalyze a farming revolution in Africa.” Today, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) published an analysis of the evaluation. As the headline coverage in development media outlet Devex stated, “AGRA has failed to improve Africa's food security, report finds.”

The Elephant (Kenya)

It is a myth that the only way to increase productivity on existing agricultural lands is through Green Revolution programs. Evidence shows that they are among the principal causes of unsustainable land use.

read the full article on The Elephant…

African Arguments

Timothy A. Wise responds to an op-ed by Hailemariam Desalegn, former prime minister of Ethiopia and current Board Chair at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, defending AGRA over findings that it is failing on its own terms.

IPS News

As world leaders wrap up the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow, new scientific research shows that there is still a great deal of magical thinking by people like Bill Gates about the contribution of fertilizer to global warming.