ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Ten Transgenic Products on Shelves, say NGOs

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 21 2000 (IPS) - The Brazilian Consumers’ Defence Institute (IDEC) and international environmental watchdog Greenpeace denounced Tuesday in Brazil that at least 10 food products sold widely in supermarkets contained transgenic components, which are banned in this South American country.

‘Nestogeno’, an infant food complex produced by the Swiss transnational Nestle, is one of the products in which traces of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were detected by independent labs in Austria and Switzerland.

Nestogeno was found to contain 0.1 percent of “Roundup Ready” (RR) soy produced by Monsanto, a US transnational heavily involved in the market for transgenic seeds.

RR soy, which is resistant to Monsanto’s broad-spectrum weedicide “Roundup”, cannot be planted in Brazil due to a pending lawsuit brought by IDEC, a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

IDEC and Greenpeace separately sent a total of 42 products found today on supermarket shelves in Brazil to be analysed by foreign labs. Of the 10 found to contain GMOs, nine contained RR soy. The highest content — 8.7 percent — was found in “Bac’Os” or “bacon chips” produced by the US company Gourmand Foods.

“Pringles Original” potato chips produced by the Belgian group Procter & Gamble, meanwhile, were found to contain Bt 176 transgenic corn produced by Switzerland’s Novartis.

None of the products were labelled as containing transgenic components, which according to IDEC, Greenpeace and other NGOs could be toxic to human health or allergy-provoking. This is “deception, Brazilians are consuming transgenics unawares,” said IDEC coordinator Marilena Lazzarini.

Executive director of Greenpeace Brazil, Roberto Kishinami, protested that the companies were violating national laws as well as the rights of consumers.

Environmentalists are also opposed to genetically engineered crops because they threaten biodiversity by transferring their characteristics to other organisms in an uncontrollable manner.

Greenpeace activists attacked a supermarket of the Carrefour chain in Sao Paulo, forcing it to pull the products found to contain GMOs off its shelves. The French company had previously pledged that it would not sell transgenic products.

IDEC and Greenpeace are waging an all-out offensive to keep GMOs out of Brazil. In the past few weeks, tens of thousands of tonnes of Argentine corn were retained in Brazilian ports on court order, due to reports that the corn was contaminated by GMOs.

The battle is expected to heat up, because this year Brazil will have to increase imports of corn due to a poor harvest caused by a lengthy drought. The main suppliers of corn are Argentina and the United States, two countries where genetically modified seeds are widely used.

The failure of authorities to act on the question is evident, said Lazzarini, who added that there was no guarantee that other shipments of contaminated grains have not entered the country.

The government should prevent the illegal importation of such products, “besides taking companies that commit these irregularities to court,” he urged.

Eight of the 31 common supermarket products sent by IDEC to be analysed in Europe were found to contain traces of GMOs, which were found in three of the eight products sent by Greenpeace for analysis. (One of the products found to contain GMOs was on both lists).

The National Technical Commission on Biosafety, which falls under the ministry of science and technology, has already issued a report in favour of the commercial planting of RR soy, which is still banned, however, pending a court decision in the suit filed by IDEC.

The view held by the commission’s team of scientists that crops grown from genetically modified seeds are safe and should be permitted runs against the opinion of environmentalists worldwide.

Meanwhile, the ministry of agriculture is hesitant to take a stance, due to the growing opposition to transgenic soy in Europe, the biggest market for Brazil’s farm products.

Some state governments in Brazil, like that of Rio Grande do Sul, have sided with environmentalists and prohibited the planting of transgenic crops. But there have been a number of reports that Argentine seeds are being smuggled into Brazil.

This week’s episode was the first denunciation of the sale of consumer goods found by laboratory analyses to contain GMOs.