Mexican environmental and human rights groups have taken their battle against genetically modified corn to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, accusing the Mexican government of failing to protect corn diversity in the crop’s ancient birthplace.

The complaint, filed this month by Greenpeace Mexico and half a dozen farmers’ and human rights groups, targets the illegal planting of genetically modified corn in the northern state of Chihuahua in 2007. The complainants accuse three federal agencies—the Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food Secretariat (Sagarpa), the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat) and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR)—of failing to investigate properly and punish the guilty.

But the groups also make a broader charge: By failing to enforce its longtime moratorium on commercial planting of genetically modified corn, they argue, the Mexican government is violating not only the human rights of Mexican farmers, but of corn consumers worldwide.

“The case of Chihuahua is unequivocal evidence of the lack of capacity and political will on the part of the Mexican government to halt contamination from transgenic corn in Mexico,” says Aleira Lara, coordinator of Greenpeace Mexico’s sustainable-agriculture and transgenics campaign. “It is unforgivable that in the center of origin and of genetic diversity [of corn], the federal government fails to apply its environmental laws.”

Government officials deny the charges. René Carmona, a spokesman for the Environment Secretariat’s inspection wing, Profepa, says his agency investigated the claims in Chihuahua and that several farmers were fined.

Proponents of transgenic corn say the current safeguards against genetic contamination of Mexico’s corn crop are adequate. “We have to distinguish between illegal plantings and what they call contamination,” says Fabrice Salamanca, president of AgroBIO Mexico, a grouping of the main agricultural biotechnology firms in the country. Salamanca argues that the illegal plantings in Chihuahua were deliberate and isolated acts on the part of farmers who were frustrated by the government’s delay in authorizing transgenic technology. “They knew exactly what they were doing,” he says.

Experimental stage

The first genetically modified corn was introduced in the United States in 1996. In Mexico, where corn was first domesticated more than 7,000 years ago, the government waited until last year to authorize experimental plantings of transgenic varieties. It also limited the experiments to areas of the north traditionally used for commercial agriculture, and far from the biodiversity zones.

“The safeguards are already there,” says Andrés Félix, director of corporate affairs for Monsanto Mexico, which won permits to experiment with genetically modified maize in the north of the country. “We are only allowed to plant in areas that are not centers of origin of corn. The borders are clearly defined.”

Félix also asserts transgenic crops are better for the environment, since they can require fewer applications of pesticides and less water. (In the case of transgenic crops, plants’ DNA has been bioengineered to build traits such as resistance to herbicides, insects or drought.)

Critics dispute those claims. They cite recent studies in Europe and elsewhere suggesting possible environmental and health effects of gene modified crops. Many also fear that the country’s irreplaceable corn biodiversity—second only to Peru’s—could be lost as conventional varieties are contaminated with transgenic ones through cross-pollination. The issue is sensitive in Mexico, whose rich array of native maize varieties has served as a basis of selective breeding of corn for centuries.

In September 2008, the Agriculture Secretariat reported finding evidence of genetically modified corn on four plots spanning 70 hectares (170 acres) in Chihuahua. The agency later announced that it had seized the crops and levied its first fines on farmers for flouting the ban on sowing transgenic corn, although it didn’t specify the amount. (Since 2001, transgenic corn has been found growing in half a dozen Mexican states, apparently after seeds imported from the United States accidentally got mixed in with conventional varieties.)

Lara calls the government response insufficient, saying officials inspected only a fraction of the 25,000 hectares (60,000 acres) where the group claims it found evidence of gene-altered corn in 2007. She adds that over two years later, the group has not received a reply from the federal Attorney General’s Office specifying its follow-up action in the case.

New avenue

The groups appealed to the Washington, D.C.-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, saying they’ve exhausted all legal avenues in Mexico. The commission, the Organization of American States body responsible for investigating and monitoring human rights abuses, issues non-binding recommendations to member states. However, it can also defer the case to its sister body, the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court on Human Rights, whose decisions carry greater legal weight.

Representatives of biotech companies looking to sell transgenic seed here reject the view that enforcement lapses constitute rights violations. “I don’t think this is a case of human rights,” says Salamanca, the AgroBIO president. He argues that rather than criminalizing illegal plantings, the government should improve monitoring and educate farmers on biosafety.

Under Mexican law, illegal planting of genetically modified organisms is punishable by fines of up to 750,000 pesos (US$55,000) and up to 10 years in jail.

Mexico’s first transgenic-technology legislation, the 2005 Biosafety Law on Genetically Modified Organisms, calls for a decade-long survey of the country’s native corn species and the development of a special land-use regimen to protect them. Regions with high biodiversity would be off-limits to transgenic varieties.

Though that groundwork has not been completed, President Felipe Calderón last March lifted the 12-year ban on planting genetically modified corn in Mexico. (The country has long allowed the importation of transgenic grain for human and animal consumption). In October, the government authorized the first experimental plantings in Chihuahua and a handful of other northern states, a first step toward full commercial production.