Tortilla Prices: A Transgenic Time for Mexico?
By Kenneth
Emmond
Mexico’s sudden, acute, and possibly chronic
shortage of corn brings into focus the question of whether genetically modified (GM) strains should be welcomed or shunned.
As the price of corn goes, so goes the price of tortillas,
since tortillas are a dietary staple of rich and poor Mexicans alike. And corn prices are rising.
A recent nationwide survey of nearly 4,000 tortilla-makers,
by the Federal Consumer Authority (Profeco), showed a price range of $6.50 to $11.00 pesos [US$0.59 to US$1.01] per kilogram,
representing increases from zero to nearly double.
Not everyone is equally concerned about the effects
of these price increases.
Consumers certainly are. Thousands of them demonstrated
in Mexico City and nine other cities last Wednesday, demanding strong government action to keep the price from going even
higher.
Low-income Mexicans see this as the first inflationary
gouge out of their 3.9 percent minimum wage increase that went into effect January 1. They rightly worry that eggs, meat,
milk, and other foods that come from corn-fed livestock may soon follow.
Bank of Mexico Governor Guillermo Ortiz isn’t
worried. He sees no reason for an emergency increase in the minimum wage despite the threat of higher-than-expected inflation.
The environmental activist group Greenpeace thinks
it’s more important to keep GM foods out of Mexico than to ensure a supply of affordable food for everyone, a viewpoint
foreigners and the comfortable middle class can afford.
This columnist has struggled to understand activists’
fear of GM food products, other than as another opportunity to attack Big Business.
This ill-defined fear is reminiscent of a controversy
in Canada a few years ago over potatoes that were irradiated to prevent sprouting. Irradiated potatoes passed all food safety
tests and were certified safe but consumers refused to buy them.
Genetic selection is as old as agriculture. And nowhere
was it more successful than with corn, a hybrid crop that for 7,000 years has been dependent on humans for propagation and
survival.
The ears of corn from 2,000 years ago were small
and yields were miniscule by today’s standards. Yet it was so important to the diet that corn goddesses and gods, like
Xilonen of the Aztecs and Yum Kaax of the Mayas, were worshipped.
By the turn of the 20th century corn resembled what
we see in fields and on our dinner plates today. Yields for non-GM corn can reach 2.5 tons per hectare (about 1 ton per acre).
Improvements over the centuries were accomplished by conventional genetic selection. Genetic modification is basically fine-tuning
the methodology.
There’s not enough corn here to feed 100 million
Mexicans and their livestock: last year Mexico produced 22 million tons and imported 8 million tons more. Most of it came
from the United States, where yields reach 12.5 tons per hectare (5 tons per acre).
One of the chief reasons for high corn prices —
and the reason some experts think it will stay high — is its popularity as a source of ethanol. Ethanol is mixed with
gasoline and used to fuel automobiles.
Environmental groups should laud ethanol fuel: it’s
renewable, biodegradable, and burns cleaner than fossil fuels. And GM corn helps meet the burgeoning demand.
As environmentalists know, genetically modifying
corn can achieve many goals besides yield enhancement. It can be applied to combat food shortages that might result from climate
change.
If Mexico becomes hotter and drier, researchers will
be able to tweak its genes to help maintain yields, or they can tweak them another way if there’s too much rain. Pest-resistant
GM plants can be developed, good news for those who decry the use of chemical insecticides.
There are challenges. New strains must be rigorously
tested to ensure that they’re safe for human consumption. The market must be strictly regulated to ensure that all producers
have access to GM seeds. That’s especially true so long as they are produced by a small number of firms.
What about fears that GM pollens will contaminate
traditional corn strains, shrinking the gene pool? That too must be addressed. But it should be seen as a tradeoff, a concept
that’s often missing in environmentalist literature.
The risk of losing part of the historic and valuable
genetic pool must be measured against the vastly increased probability of meeting future demand.
There’s already been a call from some producers
for Mexico to relax its ban on GM corn. Legislators must decide whether to change that — or whether to settle in for
a long period of insufficient corn production and high tortilla prices.
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Kenneth Emmond, an economist, market consultant and
journalist who has lived in Mexico since 1995, is also a columnist with MexiData.info.
He can be reached via e-mail at Kemmond00@yahoo.com.
