Mexico Closes Border to GM Rice from U.S.
Posted by Susan Ponsolle on 03-29-07At Mexico's borders officials now require that all the rice being imported into the country be free of genetically modified (GM) varieties, a number of sources have reported. The environmentalist organization Greenpeace, armed with documents from Mexico's national food inspection service Senasica, said Thursday that the Mexican government ordered its customs offices to stop all rice coming into the country without first proving that it is free of GM organisms. Greenpeace said the announcement was made public by USA Rice Federation, but Mexico's Agriculture Secretariat has neither confirmed nor denied the report despite insistent telephone calls for information.
Efe verified that in fact the Web site of USA Rice said that since Wednesday Mexican officials have held up shipments from several U.S. exporters at the border. The non-governmental organization also released an official letter from Senasica, a division of the Agriculture Secretariat, which specifies that "in order to protect the health of consumers," all shipments of rice need to be certified "by any of the authorized laboratories" in the various countries.
The United States exports to Mexico 805,500 metric tons of rice worth $205 million, the biggest market for exports of U.S. grain in the world, according to USA Rice data. "Mexico has to remain firm on this measure and not let in any GM rice, which is not only rejected by other markets, but in our country is illegal and is not authorized for human consumption," the coordinator of the Greenpeace anti-GM campaign, Gustavo Ampugnani, said in a communique.
Copyright © 2007 EFE News Services (U.S.) Inc. Source : Financial Times Information Limited.
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