Brazil's new agriculture minister sees GM corn imports
Date: 17-Dec-02
Country: BRAZIL
But in an interview on Globo television, Rodrigues said this would only be done under strict scientific controls and labeling so as to protect public health and the environment.
"Corn is needed to feed poultry, pigs and dairy cattle but will only be imported after absolutely strict scientific studies and labeling," said Rodrigues, who was appointed on Friday by president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Brazil is the last major agricultural producer to ban the commercial use of genetically modified crops.
Rodrigues, 60, is president of the Brazilian Association of Agribusiness (Abag), a former president of the International Agricultural Cooperative Alliance, and a political independent.
An agronomist by training, Rodrigues is also a soy and sugar cane farmer.
After drought damaged its harvest, Brazil last month slashed a corn import tariff to 2 percent from 9.5 percent until end-February 2003, making it easier to import corn from the U.S.
Corn imports from Argentina are tariff-free because Argentina is a fellow member of the Mercosur trade bloc which includes Uruguay and Paraguay.
Lula's Workers' Party is against the use of transgenic crops but has said it will listen to scientific experts.
Although in 1998 the government's regulatory body on biotechnology (CTNBio) approved the sale of Monsanto's (MON.N) GM soybeans, local consumer and environmental groups obtained a court injunction blocking the sales.
Departing Agriculture Minister Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes also favored approval of GM crops but was unable to break the legal deadlock.
GM soybeans are already illegally grown on an estimated 25 percent of Brazil's soy area, government researchers say. GM seeds are smuggled across from neighboring Argentina.