Following its mission to Europe earlier this summer, MAIZALL—The International Maize Alliance—will return to the continent next week to visit with senior officials of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The team, representing the national corn producer organizations of the United States, Brazil and Argentina, will travel first to Geneva to meet WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo and other WTO officials. While the MAIZALL partners remain competitors for international market share, the United States, Brazil and Argentina are committed to modern agricultural technology, food security through trade and ensuring market access.

A key issue in discussions with the WTO will be global regulatory processes for biotech crops that are trade barriers and can be contrary to the principles of the international trade body.   

The MAIZALL team will also meet with each producing country’s WTO agriculture representative to encourage collaboration and coordination in advocating on behalf of Argentina, Brazil and U.S. farmers for predictable and transparent biotechnology risk assessment and approval processes around the world.

The team will then travel to Rome to meet with FAO Director General Jose Graziano da Silva and other FAO officials. Discussions will focus on how trade is fundamental to food security; how biotechnology is a scale-neutral technology that can benefit large and small farmers; and how biotechnology has improved the quality of the production on farms, which is critical to mitigating the risk of post-harvest loss.

For more about the mission and work of MAIZALL, visit http://www.MAIZALL.org.