After a four-year legal battle, two Mexican divisions of Monsanto, now subsidiaries of Bayer, announced they dropped lawsuits against the Mexican government. Several lawsuits were initiated in response to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador 2020 presidential decree, which aimed to ban glyphosate and genetically modified (GM) corn for human consumption.
The decision is being hailed as “a triumph for life, health and food sovereignty” by the National Council of Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (Conahcyt).
The legal battle brought forth by Bayer, included more than 30 judicial protective order suits in an attempt to declare the decree unconstitutional, but the majority of the cases “concluded with rulings unfavorable to the corporations involved” after “Conahcyt provided scientific and legal defenses, presenting more than 250 pieces of evidence to support the decree,” Mexico News Daily reported.
Conahcyt replaced the 2020 decree with a 2023 decree, by which additional restrictions on GM corn were added to the initial ban. Bayer tried to suspend the 2023 decree, but the four-year legal battle came to an end on June 25 when Monsanto’s subsidiaries, Semillas y Agroproductos Monsanto and Monsanto Comercial, ratified their withdrawal, Mexico News Daily reported.
Monsanto, owned by Bayer after the German company aquired Monsanto in a $63 billion deal in 2018, produces the herbicide Roundup, a glyphosate-based product that is used in the cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) such as Roundup Ready corn, cotton and soybeans. Classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization, Bayer maintains that RoundUp is scientifically safe.
While the lawsuits have been dropped against the Mexican government, Conahcyt said it will “continue its efforts to ensure that GM corn and glyphosate are removed from the Mexican food supply,” the Mexico News Daily reported.
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