Lula government would favor GM-free Brazil
Date: 07-Oct-02
Country: BRAZIL
Author: Reese Ewing
"We want to establish a reputation as GM-free," said Lula's agricultural policy advisor, Jose Graziano da Silva. "We get premium prices on specialty markets that our competitors - the U.S. and Argentina - don't because they plant GM."
Selling Brazil as GM-free is part of Lula's broader agricultural policy that expects to boost trade revenue from farm goods by exploring value added and niche markets abroad.
Lula of the left-wing Workers' Party (PT) is far ahead of other candidates in the polls just three days before the first round of voting this Sunday.
Although the PT has distanced itself recently from militant small farmer and rural landless workers, they are still a rural pillar of its political base and strongly oppose GM crops as deleterious to small farms.
In this agricultural Goliath of Brazil, the potential market for gene-altered crops - such as soy designed to survive a strong glyphosate weed killer or corn that secretes a natural bug repellent - has the biotech sector salivating.
However, Monsanto and the current government have failed over the last four years to end Brazil's ban on GM sales. Consumer and environmental watchdogs have succeeded in using local courts to block any commercial use of the crops, despite most farmers' preference for the cost-saving technology.
Environmentalists Greenpeace, for example, oppose the use of current GM technologies because they feel they are a potential threat to the environment and human health.
Biotech research may resume with the government crop research arm (Embrapa), said Graziano da Silva, "but until it is sufficiently proven that it is safe for humans and the environment, the ban on commercial use will be enforced."
Silva is senior professor in agricultural economics at Unicamp university and an author of the PT's agricultural policy.
"We will enforce the ban, unlike the current government which has turned a blind eye to the problem," said Silva.
BAN CREATES GM BLACK MARKET
The Brazilian Association of Seed Producers (Abrasem) says the ban is ruining their industry as farmers facing stiff competition abroad turn to the black market to buy the technology, which promises to reduce costs and raise yields.
Official state-registered seed producers, who are only allowed by law to sell conventional soybean seed, say they are watching their orders plummet.
Over half of the soy crops in the No. 2 and No. 3 producing states in Brazil's South are believed to be planted from illegal GM seeds smuggled in from across the Argentine border where they are widely planted and sold, said Abrasem.
"We are awaiting rules for the planting of transgenic seeds so that our producers can compete on equal footing with foreign producers who today reap the benefits of this technology," said Joao Lenine Bonifacio e Souza, president of the government's biotech regulatory body (CTNBio).
Brazil's Federal Regional Court has been deliberating on lifting the ban for several months, but even if the judges allow GM-crop planting, Greenpeace and local consumer groups are likely to appeal to a higher court.
A sweeping bill meant to regulate biotech food crops has also been pending in Congress for almost a year and is unlikely to be voted on until after the presidential elections in October. It may not come before a quorum until 2003 after the new government takes office.
The planting of experimental GM crops for noncommercial use was also banned in the country in 2001 because of a lack of clear government regulation.
Analysts say this has cost Brazil direct foreign investment from biotech companies that would otherwise set up laboratories here to take advantage of the highly educated scientific population driving the country's rich farm research sector.
