December 12, 2001 -- Mexico's Congress unanimously demanded this week that President Vicente Fox ban the importation of genetically modified (GM) corn, and claimed the new corn could affect the genetic integrity of Mexico's crops and threaten the country's food supply. While the planting of transgenic corn has been forbidden in Mexico for three years now, it is still being imported from the United States.

GM corn has been a hot issue in Mexico since genes from transgenic varieties were found in wild corn in the southern state of Oaxaca, according to AgBioWorld.org.

The environmental organization Greenpeace has also claimed the Agricultural Secretariat, which has publicly supported introducing GM corn, is trying to open up the country's market to GM crops before legislation is passed prohibiting it. Mexico's Senate has also demanded access to the results of Agriculture's Secretariat's study of the affected corn in Oaxaca as well as advances in the creation of a federal commission for biosecurity.

The Mexican government also is taking samples of corn from Puebla and Oaxaca states to check for genetically modified corn. While transgenic corn has been previously identified in Oaxaca, but not in its neighbor state of Puebla.