Mexican region to defend native maize from GMOs

The Mexican district of Mexico City is to protect native varieties of maize from possible cross-pollination from genetically modified lines, the newswire, SciDev, reports. The move came days before the national government’s amendment to its biosafety legislation, removing a regime on the protection of native and wild varieties ( Agrow No 564, p 18). That was passed to enable GM maize trials to go ahead. The region covered by the district’s policy has a maize area of 3,000 ha. Mexico City will “provide funds to aid farmers, who solely plant native varieties, and promote the use of organic pesticides”, its mayor, Marcelo Ebrad, reportedly says. He has called for research to discover the effects on biodiversity from planting GM lines. The sale and distribution of GM maize is banned in the region.