ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Transgenic Soy Rampant, Despite Ban

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 5 2002 (IPS) - Fuelled by the Brazilian government’s failure to enforce a ban on genetically engineered crops, transgenic soy has been smuggled over the border from Argentina, and is spreading fast in Latin America’s biggest country.

U.S. agro-industry giant Monsanto’s Round-up Ready (RR) soy, resistant to the company’s own broad-spectrum Round-up weedicide, is being planted in Brazil with virtually no controls, according to a report by Liberal Party parliamentary Deputy Ronaldo Vasconcellos.

The commercial planting of RR soy was initially authorised by Brazil’s National Technical Commission on Biosafety in 1998. However, it was then banned by the courts after non-governmental organisations complained about the lack of studies on the long- term environmental and health impacts of transgenic crops, as called for by Brazilian legislation.

Transgenic seeds, which have been brought in from Argentina since 1997 or 1998, account for an estimated 60 percent of the soy bean crop in the state of Rio Grande do Sul – Brazil’s southernmost state – and transgenic soy has spread north to nearly all of the country’s farming regions, according to the information gathered by Vasconcellos.

The 60 percent figure is based on the drop in sales of seeds certified to be non-transgenic, which now account for just one- third of the soy planted in Rio Grande do Sul, said Joao Henrique Hummel, president of the Brazilian Association of Seeds.

However, there is no way to prove that two-thirds of the soy beans planted in Rio Grande do Sul are transgenic, said Vasconcellos, who noted that disseminating exaggerated figures is actually in the interests of sectors that want the ban on growing transgenic crops in Brazil lifted.

The aim of those sectors, said the lawmaker, was to create a situation in which the widespread planting of transgenic soy was a “fait accompli”, in order to discourage resistance to the “irreversible” spread of RR soy.

In his report to the Chamber of Deputies’ Commission for the Defence of Consumers, the Environment and Minorities, Vasconcellos stated that Agriculture Minister Marcus Pratini de Moraes “has favoured the illegal crops” by publicly coming out in favour of genetically modified organisms.

Due to that “above-the-law stance,” the Agriculture Ministry has failed to carry out its duty to conduct inspections and block the illegal planting of transgenic crops, thus in practice encouraging the spread of genetically modified organisms, the legislator argued.

Vasconcellos also accused the National Technical Commission on Biosafety of favouring Monsanto and acting more as a “promoter of biotechnology” than as a technical risk assessment body.

According to the lawmaker’s report, the 1998 decision to authorise the planting of RR soy was a hasty move, nor was there any justification for the permission granted for the planting of experimental fields of up to 100 hectares, the largest of which belong to Monsanto.

Vasconcellos said he suspected that illegal seeds were being produced on the experimental fields, and were swelling the pool of contraband seeds.

However, the battle is not lost, and Brazil can still become “a territory free of transgenics,” the president of the Compañía de Abastecimiento de Rio Grande do Sul, Silvio Porto, told IPS.

He noted that the state government of Rio Grande do Sul has banned transgenic products and has tried to maintain vigilance over the extensive border shared by Brazil and Argentina, one of the world leaders in transgenic soy.

Genetically modified seeds were smuggled across the border with ease until 2000, due to a conflict over jurisdiction that kept local state authorities from carrying out inspections along the border, while the federal government failed to do so itself, said Porto.

However, it is possible to curb the trafficking of seeds, as indicated by the success of efforts to keep Brazilian livestock from being infected by outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease across the border in Argentina, he asserted.

Continuous monitoring of crops and sanctions like a suspension of loans to those who plant transgenic crops could put an end to the problem, according to Porto.

News of the rampant spread of transgenic crops also worries the government of the southern state of Parana, Brazil’s second- biggest soy producer.

Last month, the Parana Secretariat of Agriculture launched an offensive against illegal RR soy, found planted in 17 areas, which were interdicted. The fate of the farmers growing transgenic soy will be up to the courts.

Local state authorities, worried about losing export markets due to widespread consumer resistance abroad to genetically engineered foods, underlined that last month’s discovery was the first time routine analyses, carried out since 1998, have detected transgenic crops.

Moreover, they said, transgenics accounted for a mere 0.01 percent of the area planted in soy in the state.

The federations of agriculture of Mato Grosso do Sul – the country’s leading soy-producing state – and Parana have thrown their backing behind local authorities’ opposition to transgenic crops, because the farmers’ main markets, the European Union and Japan, prefer food that contains no genetically modified organisms.

Lifting the ban on transgenics in Brazil or allowing crops to be contaminated by illegally planted genetically engineered crops would result in “an enormous loss of revenues,” warned the Parana federation of agriculture’s Technical Commission on Grains.

The country can no longer guarantee deliveries of the traditional soy beans demanded by its main export clients, because the national system for storing grains is unable to certify “reliable separation” of the two kinds of soy, the Commission warned.

Furthermore, it argued, Brazil has benefited by offering traditional, non-transgenic soy. In the two last harvests, the country’s share of the international market expanded from 24 to 36 percent, while that of the United States, the world’s leading producer of genetically modified organisms, shrank from 57 to 46 percent, according to the Commission.