Mexico has lifted the ban on experimental cultivation of transgenic maize imposed in 1999 in this country where the crop was first domesticated and shaped human culture. Biotech giants have put forward two dozen projects for approval and have announced investments of 382 million dollars up to 2012. The green light given by the government of conservative President Felipe Calderón to the trials, by means of an executive decree which came into force early this month, has provoked the indignation of activists and campesinos (small farmers) opposed to genetically modified (GM) maize.

Mexico is changing its laws to allow the planting of genetically modified corn for experimental reasons. Growers will now be able to apply for government permission for experimental plots. The law published Friday in the official registry does not specify limits on how much GM corn can be planted or where.

One of the more acrimonious scientific debates of the decade may have ended with the publication of a study showing that genetically modified material did contaminate native corn in the crop’s birthplace in southern Mexico, scientists said Wednesday. But Elena Alvarez Buylla, author of the article published in the February edition of Molecular Ecology, said the difficult atmosphere surrounding the original debate — which threatened the reputations of some scientists — persists.

International debates on responsibility and compensation for the damages the trans-border movement of genetically modified organisms can provoke to biological diversity continues Tuesday in this capital. More than 150 delegates from different countries as well as national and international observers are attending the First Friends Meeting of Co-presidents on Responsibility and Compensation in the framework of the Cartagena Protocol on Biotechnology Security.

Genes from genetically-engineered corn have been found in traditional crop strains in Mexico, according to a new study likely to reignite a bitter controversy over biotech maize. The paper, by scientists from Mexico, the United States and the Netherlands, backs a 2001 probe that sparked a row over the safety of genetically-modified (GM) crops.

Green activists say GM crops are a potential hazard, arguing that their genes could spread to related plants through cross-pollination.

”We battled for two years to get the results of our study published,” declares Mrs. Alvarez-Buylla. ”In the course of my entire career, I have never encountered so many difficulties! There were efforts to stop the publication of this scientific data!” Biologist José Sarukhan, a UNAM researcher and member of the United States National Academy of Science, had recommended the article for publication by that organization’s review. The latter rejected the article in March, with the justification that it risked provoking ”excessive media attention for political or environmentally-related reasons ...”

The potential effects of transgenic corn on the native species of this key crop have been a long-running debate in Mexico. [...] ”This issue was considered of great potential environmental importance, given that Mexico is a center of origin and diversity for maize and that maize is so intrinsically linked to Mexican culture, especially that of Mexican indigenous groups,” says a study by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) of North America, entitled ”The Effects of Transgenic Maize in Mexico.”

Transgenes from genetically modified (GM) maize (corn) crops have been found in traditional ’landrace’ maize in the Mexican heartland, a study says. The work largely confirms a similar, controversial result published in Nature in 2001 and may reignite the debate in Mexico over GM crops. The paper reports finding transgenes in three of the 23 locations that were sampled in 2001, and again in two of those locations using samples taken in 2004. Written by a team led by Elena Álvarez-Buylla of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City, the study will be published in the journal Molecular Ecology.

Greenpeace demanded Thursday that Mexico ban the planting of genetically modified corn, using a giant ear of corn covered with a condom to dramatize the idea of protecting native crops. Greenpeace activists protested against GM crops in front of the Agriculture and Ranching Secretariat in Mexico City. The group said that the Mexican grain can only be protected from contamination with a solid ”regime of special protection for corn” and criticized those who support the experimental sowing of GM corn in Mexico.

About 200 farmers organizations in Mexico demanded the government an unlimited moratorium on Genetically Modified corn. By a communiqué spread in this capital the plaintiffs ask for more attention to farmers and native agriculture and a special protection regime around original corn as the Mexican people's main food. They denounced speculation and privatizing practices of transnational companies which are interested in spreading growing of GMOs in hectares devoted to national production.