A Mexican Embassy official on Monday pleaded with the U.S. government to continue funding CIMMYT (The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) in Mexico where Norman Borlaug, the American plant breeder, developed the wheat that has been credited with saving millions of lives through the “Green Revolution.”

During a discussion of trade issues at American Seed Trade Association Leadership Summit, Carlos Vazquez Ochoa, the agriculture minister at the Mexican embassy in Washington, noted that the Trump administration had canceled $80 million in funding for CIMMYT after dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

Vazquez Ochoa repeatedly returned to the point during a discussion with Jason Hafemeister, the acting associate administrator, of the Agriculture Department’s Foreign Agricultural Service, and Carlos Vanderloo, the minister-counselor for economic and trade policy at the Canadian embassy in Washington. He said the cut amounts to 40% of CIMMYT’s budget and affects the work of 500 researchers. 

In a brief interview after the panel, Vazquez Ochoa said he hopes the United States will re-establish funding for CIMMYT because the only country that has shown an interest in making up for the loss of the U.S. funding is China and that China wants to “relocate” the research center closer to China. 

CIMMYT grew out of a pilot program sponsored by the Mexican government and the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1940s and ’50s, and aimed at raising farm productivity in Mexico.

Under Borlaug’s leadership, the program developed higher yielding wheat varieties that were more resistant to diseases and provided stable yields in changing conditions for developing countries.

The widespread adoption of improved varieties and farming practices that ensued was called the “Green Revolution.”

In 1970, Borlaug, who was leading wheat research at CIMMYT, received the Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to the Green Revolution.

The CIMMYT still links to USAID from its “Our Funders” page, but the USAID site now contains a single page with a notice that personnel have been placed on administrative leave. 

During the discussion, the representatives of the three countries discussed the importance of the North American agricultural trade relationship and noted the upcoming review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade. 

Hafemeister said the trade discussion is “not being driven by agriculture but agriculture is being affected by it.”