A Mexican court has rejected a company's appeal to lift a ban on commercial planting of transgenic corn in Mexico, passing the matter to the Supreme Court, a lawyer for the firm said on Friday. A federal court in Mexico City rejected the suit by PHI Mexico, a unit of US chemical maker DowDuPont Inc's company Pioneer, because it found it was not authorized to rule on the matter, said the lawyer, Rene Sanchez. "So it leaves things as they are until the (Supreme) court decides whether to study it or rule on it," Sanchez said.
Mexico currently permits cultivation of genetically-modified corn for scientific ends in areas of up to 1 hectare (2.5 acres) and non-commercial pilot schemes in areas of up to 10 hectares under judicial supervision. Commercial cultivation is prohibited. The curbs on transgenic corn are part of a suit brought in 2013 by a group known as the Colectividad del Maiz composed of farmers, scientists, environmentalists and others.
The court could not immediately be reached for comment. In such cases, the rulings are typically not public and the findings only made known to the affected parties.