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Mexico bans glyphosate to curb its harmful effects on health

2021-01-12T18:19:41.413Z


Ecologists welcome the decree that vetoes the pesticide and seeks to eliminate transgenic corn by 2024


Mexico has set out to end the indiscriminate use of pesticides.

The Government has ordered a ban on glyphosate - the most widely used herbicide in the world - by 2024. The presidential decree published on December 31, 2020, which also seeks to ban transgenic corn, argues that "it has harmful effects on health, both of human beings as of some animal species ”.

The Latin American country thus joins the growing list of countries that, such as Austria or Germany, are vetoing glyphosate, which has become the symbol of the harmful impacts of agribusiness.

The Monsanto company patented the pesticide in 1974 under the Roundup brand, but since the patent expired in 2000, it has also been marketed by other companies.

Between 2011 and 2012, more than 70% of the bees of Hopelchén beekeepers died.

The inhabitants of that municipality of Campeche, in southern Mexico, came to their apiaries and found these small pollinators on the ground.

The collapse in bee populations coincided with the arrival of Monsanto in its territory: in 2012, transgenic soybean crops in the Yucatan Peninsula exceeded 60,000 hectares.

The seeds of the agro-industrial giant are genetically modified to resist glyphosate, a herbicide that kills the bad weeds of the harvest.

And, with bees, too.

Jorge Oziel Pech learned the ancestral care of these insects since he was a child.

Mayan Indians like him have been producing honey for hundreds of years and consider the native bee of these lands, the Melipona, sacred.

But pesticides, sprayed from airplanes to spray large tracts of monocultures near their communities, threatened their main livelihood and traditions.

Glyphosate also permeated other spheres of his life: it appeared in urine samples, in his wells and even in bottled water.

The controversy over the damage it causes has been intense for years.

In 2015, the World Health Organization classified it as "probable carcinogenic" for humans, but the European Food Safety Agency does not consider it as such.

Environmental organizations have denounced the pressure Monsanto has exerted to avoid this classification in Europe and the United States.

But lobbying has not been so successful in court.

German giant Bayer, which bought Monsanto in 2018, agreed to pay $ 10.9 billion last year to end tens of thousands of lawsuits in the US for cancer cases, allegedly caused by the pesticide.

What is becoming increasingly difficult to deny is the effect it has on ecosystems and insects such as bees, which are essential to pollinate hundreds of crops.

In 2018, a University of Texas study revealed that glyphosate disrupts the gut microbiome of bees and weakens their immune systems.

And last year, the US Environmental Protection Agency itself recognized that it can harm or kill more than 90% of endangered species.

In Mexico, the fight waged by Mayan beekeepers led the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation to suspend the planting of transgenic soy in Yucatán and Campeche.

Jorge Oziel Pech, nephew of the leader of that movement, Leydy Pech, sees the decree banning glyphosate as a new victory, but says it is "just the beginning."

"Glyphosate is the substance that is most talked about, but there are others that cause greater damage and are marketed in an uncontrolled way in the region."

In Mexico there are 140 authorized pesticides that in other countries are prohibited due to their toxicity.

Although there is no reliable data on the amount of glyphosate used in this country, it is known that the Ministry of the Environment prevented the importation of 67,000 tons between December 2019 and August 2020, says Fernando Bejarano, director of the Network of Action on Pesticides and Alternatives in Mexico (RAPAM).

Bejarano is part of the organization Sin Maíz No Hay País, which has been fighting for 13 years to protect the native varieties of this grain.

His movement got the Mexican Justice to suspend the planting of transgenic corn in 2013 until the Supreme Court rules.

The expert welcomes the decree, which he sees as a way to "contain an industrial agriculture that externalizes costs in health and the environment."

The National Agricultural Council and its leader, Bosco de la Vega, have launched a strong campaign against the glyphosate ban, ensuring that it will drastically reduce productivity.

“We bring great threats to national production.

Cabinet members themselves are putting a hand brake on development, "he said in August last year during a forum.

The conflicting views on the Mexican countryside were also evident within the Government.

On the one hand, the former Secretary of the Environment, Víctor Toledo, promoted agroecology and the prohibition of glyphosate.

On the other hand, the former head of the Office of the President, Alfonso Romo - a businessman with business in the Yucatan pig industry - was opposed.

Neither is in the government anymore, but the ban finally prospered after the departure of both.

Jorge Oziel Pech is convinced that a more sustainable agriculture is possible and highlights the example of organic crops in Mexico, one of the countries with the largest agrochemical-free production in the world.

“There is an opportunity to start promoting these more environmentally friendly models.

Maybe it will cost, it will not be easy, because we have an entire agro-industrial model imposed for decades and it will be difficult to navigate.

But you have to start ”.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-01-12

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