Disclosure in internal emails shows how Monsanto’s owner Bayer AG and the lobby organization CropLife America has collaborated with US officials, with the aim of pressuring Mexico to abandon a band against the carcinogenic herbicide glyphosate, the most important ingrediensen in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup.
Since the beginning of 2020 Bayer has done its utmost to protect the export of glyphosate to Mexico. This at the same time as the company has negotiated a settlement of about 11 billion dollars in legal proceedings.
Bayer has been taken to court by people in the United States who say they have evolved Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, due to exposure to glyphosate-based products.
Despite persistent attempts to change the decision, the company has not been significantly successful. The Mexican President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has given farmers until 2024 to stop using the chemical. A final decree published on 31 December 2020 also means a phasing out of planting and consumption of genetically modified maize, in that maize is usually sprayed with glyphosate and therefore leaves residues of the pesticide in finished foods.
