Jimi's Daily Health Articles

[Jimi]

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

Mexico’s Fight To Keep GMO Corn off Its Plates Is Far From Over and It’s Heating Up​

Organic Consumers Association:

Even after a United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) dispute panel ruled against Mexico’s ban on genetically modified white corn imports, claiming the policy “wasn’t science-based” and hurt U.S. exports, Mexico isn’t backing down.

The ban on planting GMO corn in Mexico still stands, and lawmakers are now exploring new legislation that would permanently prohibit GMO corn cultivation nationwide.

At the heart of this resistance is the “Demanda Colectiva Maíz” (Maíz Collective Lawsuit), a powerhouse alliance demanding the Mexican government defend native corn, food sovereignty, and public health. The Collective argues the U.S. has yet to prove GMO corn is safe for the Mexican people — and says Mexico has every right to protect its agricultural heritage.

Mexico’s battle to keep GMO corn out of its food supply is deeply rooted in preserving native corn varieties to secure the livelihoods of small-scale farmers who produce over 80% of Mexico’s maize, and its crucial role in the nation’s health and heritage. Native corn has been cultivated for thousands of years, resulting in 64 “landraces” and over 22,000 varieties adapted to different environments. This biodiversity is essential for Mexico’s food sovereignty and the health of its people.

Mercedes López Martínez, a leading voice in the Collective, has sharply criticized Mexico’s Ministry of Economy for putting corporate interests ahead of national sovereignty and emphasizes that native corn isn’t just a crop, it’s culture, resilience, and the living heart of Mexico.

The Collective, made up of 22 civil society organizations and 52 individual advocates, is standing firm to protect that legacy. OCA proudly supports this effort through our sister organization, Vía Orgánica, where Mercedes helps lead the charge.

In a significant win, a federal court has ordered Mexico’s Ministry of Economy to formally respond to the Collective’s petition to activate USMCA mechanisms against the U.S. over agricultural biotechnology.

Learn more

 

[Jimi]

MICROBIOMES

Genetically Modified Microorganisms: Risks and Regulatory Considerations for Human and Environmental Health​

by Prof. Dr. André Leu D.Sc., BA, Com., Grad Dip Ed.:

Currently, numerous microbes are being genetically modified and released, or proposed for release, with minimal or no oversight.

These genetically modified microbes (GMMs) pose substantial risks and require proper regulation to protect the public and the environment from potential pandemics and epidemics, as well as unplanned ecological alterations. This area is like the wild west, an uncontrolled free-for-all with the potential for numerous disasters if it is not properly regulated.

I am one of the authors of this paper. My coauthors are all experts in their fields, and we spent 2 years researching and writing a scientific paper titled “Genetically Modified Microorganisms: Risks and Regulatory Considerations for Human and Environmental Health.” It was published on February 16 in the peer-reviewed journal Microorganisms.

The paper references an extensive body of peer-reviewed science to inform regulators about: 



• The critical role of the microbiome for human health and the environment
• The potential for GMMs to cause long-term and potentially irreversible damage
• Unique characteristics of microbes that make their regulation more difficult and more important than that of genetically modified plants and animals
• Serious risks that must be considered during assessments

We hope to spark a critical conversation and prompt policymakers to take a more cautious and informed approach to regulating these potentially hazardous microorganisms, prioritizing human and environmental health over unchecked innovation

Download the PDF version of the paper here

 

[Jimi]

SUPPORT OCA & RI

Defend the Rights of Farmers and Communities​

The Organic Consumers Association is pushing back against corporate giants, like Bayer and their toxic agenda.

The 2026 House Farm Bill is a huge threat to our health, environment, and food sovereignty.

We need to stop this bill. If passed, it’d give corporations a free pass to poison us with GMOs and pesticides, while gutting programs that support regenerative organic farming.

We’re not just fighting for organic food – we’re fighting for a food system that prioritizes people over profits. That's why we're joining forces with Mexico's brave resistance against GMO corn imports and supporting with the Demanda Colectiva Maíz, a coalition of 22 organizations and 52 advocates defending native corn and food sovereignty.

Please consider making a donation to help us take on corporate power and push for a toxic-free food system, support regenerative farming practices that prioritize soil health, biodiversity, and ecosystems and defend the rights of farmers and communities to make their own food choices.

Join us in this critical work! Donate today and help us create a healthier, more just food system for all.

 

[Jimi]

ENVIRONMENT

Judge Sides With Salmon Against Trump Administration in Hydropower Ruling​

Gabrielle Canon, The Guardian:

“A federal judge in Oregon sided with salmon against the Trump administration on Wednesday, ordering the federal government to change hydropower system operations long considered at the heart of native fish populations’ sharp decline.

At the center of the dispute are eight dams and reservoirs on the Columbia and Snake Rivers in the Pacific Northwest that have created devastating obstacles for salmon and steelhead, unable to breach their deadly turbines or navigate through the large, warm, artificial pools.

The Columbia River basin, which sprawls across a swath of land the size of Texas, once produced more salmon than any other system in the world. But out of the 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead that once thrived here, seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act and four have already been wiped from existence.

In the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, a landmark salmon recovery plan brokered in late 2023, the federal government committed more than $1bn over a decade to support depleted salmon runs. The plan, however, would be short-lived. Trump pulls US from plan to recover salmon population, calling it ‘radical’.”

Read about the new ruling and the encouraging news that the court has granted immediate, commonsense relief that will help protect imperiled north-west salmon and steelhead

 

[Jimi]

FOOD SYSTEMS

Big Tech and Big Ag Firms Gaining Control of Farming​

IPES Food:

“These Big Tech titans are providing cloud platforms and AI-driven decision tools being integrated into all parts of industrial agriculture, from seeds to chemical inputs to machinery. As a result, they are shaping what technologies are developed, how food production decisions are made, and what the future of farming looks like.

Public institutions and private actors are investing billions in these Big Tech agricultural innovations – framed as indispensable for productivity, soil and crop health, labor, and climate challenges. But they are betting on the wrong model.

Corporate-led digitalization of agriculture is failing to deliver ecological resilience, equity, or sustainability. Instead, it is deepening dependency on risky corporate schemes and locking agriculture into high-cost, high-energy, and high-input pathways. These innovation models tend to be extractive, expensive, polluting, and misaligned with farmers’ real needs.

Control over data is thus becoming a new source of power and profit in agriculture. Continuing along this pathway risks leaving us with declining ecological resilience, rising farmer debt and bankruptcies, loss of rural jobs, erosion of farmer knowledge and autonomy, widening inequality between farms and between Global North and Global South countries, and shrinking democratic oversight over food systems.”



Read about the path ahead: innovation for just and sustainable food systems

 

[Jimi]

REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE

Bats Are Not a Side Note in Regeneration — They Are Central to It​

Roger D. Jones:

As primary pollinators of wild agave, bats carry pollen across vast night corridors, ensuring genetic diversity, resilience, and the continuation of agave’s ancient life cycle. Without bats, agave cannot fully regenerate itself. This makes their role inseparable from the the Regeneration International’s game-changing ecosystem-regeneration strategy: “Billion Agave Project”.

The Billion Agave Project is about restoring degraded lands, rebuilding soil, capturing carbon, supporting small farmers, and creating climate resilience through large-scale agave systems. But true regeneration depends on biodiversity. Agave fields must remain biologically connected to the ecosystems that sustain them — and bats are essential to that connection.

When we protect bats, we protect the future of agave and the future that agave makes possible. They complete the circle: protecting bats strengthens agave, agave restores soil, soil cools the climate and sustains rural livelihoods, making bats regenerative allies and silent partners in our path of ecological restoration; when we protect bats, we protect the future of agave and the future it makes possible.

Bats are regenerative allies of Madre Earth and silent partners in the path of ecological restoration. When we protect bats, we protect the future of agave — and the bright future that agave makes possible.

To learn more about the fascinating world of bats and the essential role they play in regenerative agriculture, read this interview by Roger D. Jones, in conversation with Dra. Celia “Bat Woman” Selem, a renowned advocate for bat conservation

Read more about the Billion Agave Project, a project of OCA’s sister organizations, Vía Orgánica and Regeneration International

 

[Jimi]

FOOD CHAIN

Let Them Eat Patents​

Interview by Dora Mengüç with Pat Mooney, Jacobin:

“The true magnitude of farmers’ importance reveals itself in moments of crisis. They are a keystone in a fragile global food system. If their work is jeopardized, the consequences will not be abstract.

The world’s food system is not only buckling under the climate crisis, wars, and logistical breakdowns; it is also suffering the long-accumulated structural fractures of the neoliberal agricultural regime. From seed to fertilizer, from data flows to logistics, the entire chain has been consolidated into the hands of an unprecedentedly small corporate core.

Just four corporations — Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta, and BASF — now control roughly 60 percent of the world’s commercial seed and pesticide markets, an unprecedented level of consolidation across the food chain. The seed — humanity’s foundational agricultural innovation — now sits under the guardianship of multinational corporations.”

Seed is the first link in the food chain. If you control the seed, you control the entire food system.

READ: Gardening Is Important, But Seed Saving Is Crucial

Colorado bill would curb uses of crop seeds coated with harmful pesticides