Prayer warriors wanted

A minute of prayer for good corn for humanity

A 2017 study by researchers at the Autonomous University of Mexico showed the presence of transgenes in more than 90 percent of tortillas analyzed.

Thanks to the intervention of President Trump, Andrés Manuel López Obrador—who had won two previous elections only to have them stolen by the Cabal—took office after his third win in 2018.

In February of 2023, President López Obrador issued an executive decree banning genetically modified corn from tortillas and corn masa (dough). This was four years after he took office, but remember the resistance President Trump faced from the Cabal during his first term.

In response to the Mexican president’s decree, the U.S. filed a challenge with the USMCA (United States of America, Mexico, and Canada) trade dispute panel. The final decision has not been made, but I am hopeful that either the panel will affirm Mexico’s right to protect its people from toxins in their food, or the U.S. (under Trump) will withdraw its challenge.

What can we do? With the authority given to us by Yeshua, there is nothing that we cannot do. This is the prayer I made.

Mexico and United States

Trade dispute panel

God’s corn now

The reason why I don’t use negatives in my prayers—i.e., “no genetically modified corn”—is because our prayers are like pictures. If I pray that the president doesn’t get shot, I’m sending a picture of him getting shot—the opposite of what I want. Athletes understand this, and they always envision success. (What kind of a team would pray to not lose?)

Therefore, because I want the people of the world to have the kind of food God intended us to have, I pray for God’s food. I refuse to give my power to genetically modified food by thinking about it.

Jessie Czebotar

Rise Up! The Foundation of Dominion & Authority with Jessie Czebotar

“. . . because our struggle is not with flesh and blood, but with principalities, with authorities, with the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, with the spiritual powers of evil in the heavenly places.” - Ephesians 6:12

Corn Setback - La Jornada

Luis Hernández Navarro - 19 November 2024

Mexico [may have] lost the trade dispute panel that the U.S. requested against AMLO’s presidential decree of February 13, 2023, which bans genetically modified corn in tortillas and masa, and imposes a future ban in all products for human consumption and animal feed.

According to the Secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, “they have already given us the preliminary result of corn. The process is not finished yet; it will end in December (the 14th), but maybe they will beat us.”

Unfortunately, what the secretary says is an understatement. In fact, the cards are marked and Mexico will suffer a setback. Since the presidential decree was announced it was evident that, apart from the good intentions of stopping the expansion of Frankenstein corn here, the fight was lost. Ana de Ita analyzed this dispute without illusion in her article “Transgenic Corn and T-MEC” (USMCA) (https://shorturl.at/Gl19v).

I am not happy with this outcome. Since June 2001 I have tried to document in La Jornada the damage caused to peasant agriculture by these seeds and by the GMO Biosecurity Law (Lbogm) of 2004, known as the Monsanto law. But anyone who knows the rules of the USMCA (and before that of the NAFTA) could foresee that the blow was inevitable.

This is because the ban contravenes clauses of the USMCA, which is the legal framework that governments agreed to play by. It was also inevitable because of the enormous importance that corn production has in the United States, because of the political weight of its farmers (and the amount of subsidies they receive), as well as because of the setbacks that Mexico had in increasing its grain harvest.

The U.S. appealed to Chapter 9 of the USMCA, under which it can request scientific support when a country's health measure may restrict trade and is not based on an international standard, guideline or recommendation.

Demonstrating the harm caused by genetically modified seeds is a fight between David and Goliath. The big biotechnology companies have devoted considerable resources to financing studies that “show” the harmlessness of their genetic monsters, and to stigmatizing the few serious investigations, carried out with very little funding, that show the damage they cause.

The U.S. is the leading producer of corn on the planet, followed by China and Brazil. According to the USDA, the corn harvest in 2023/2024 was 389 million 700 thousand tons. Its average yield is formidable: almost 11.5 tons per hectare. It exported about 60 million tons.

In the U.S., most corn is planted with genetically modified seeds. For them, it is not just food for human consumption. It is the raw material of a wide and diversified industrial chain. It is used for livestock feed, fuel, high-fructose sweeteners, alcohols, oils and snacks.

All this means, in a nutshell, that the dispute over grain with Mexico is not a mere trade dispute: it is a war by powerful economic actors (from large farmers to biotechnology companies) to have indiscriminate access to the Mexican market.

Massive imports of transgenic corn from the U.S. (also from other countries) have left a deep mark on our people. A 2017 study by researchers at the UAM and UNAM showed the presence of transgenes in more than 90 percent of the tortillas analyzed. It also found that 82 percent of processed foods with industrial corn components were contaminated.

Despite having all the policy instruments to do so, during the first six years of the Fourth Transformation, the government was unable to reverse the growing imports of yellow corn, nor the losses in the harvested area (it was reduced by 3.3 percent, from 7.15 million hectares in 2019 to 6.92 in 2023). During the first five years, production also decreased by 1.9 percent. The guaranteed price program had almost no impact. Food self-sufficiency remained nothing more than a good intention.

Our agricultural model is subject to the dynamics of the USMCA. It has been oriented toward export products. Do we want to produce more corn? Do we want to avoid the invasion of transgenic crops? It is not just a matter of laws or decrees. Without a change in global trade rules and without a different agricultural model, there will be no way to do it.