New law a boost for transgenics in Brazil

Brazil

Transgenic agriculture looks likely to gain more ground in Brazil following President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s signing last month of a law that should speed approval of licenses for genetically modified seeds.

Under the law, approval of all commercial licenses for transgenic plantings will require a simple-majority vote of the 27-member National Technical Commission for Biosafety (CTNBio), the licensing body, as opposed to the two-thirds majority required until now.

Meanwhile, another provision in the legislation allows cultivation of some types of transgenic crops as close as 500 meters (1,640 feet) to protected areas as opposed to the 6-mile (10-km) distance required under the only previous such measure—a March 2005 provision that solely addresses soy.

“This [new] measure is beneficial because different transgenic crops—some of which cross-fertilize, like cotton and corn, others of which self-fertilize, like soy—pose different contamination risks,” says Rubens Nodari, an Environment Ministry official.

Counters Gabriela Vuolo, coordinator of the transgenics campaign for Greenpeace in Brazil: “[T]he law increases the risk that seeds from some of these crops, herbicides or herbicide-resistant weeds could reach and contaminate those protected areas.”

More approvals expected

While the protected-areas measure has drawn attention, the new law’s highest-profile provision is the one affecting ground rules for approval of licenses for the commercial use and sale of gene-altered seeds.

So far, two such seed varieties are permitted in Brazil: Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soy, which is bioengineered to tolerate herbicide, and the company’s bollworm-resistant Bollgard cotton, which is gene-altered to produce its own pesticide.

The CTNBio, a broad-based panel of scientists drawn from government, academia, the private sector and non-governmental groups, has not approved a commercial transgenic product license since March 2005.

Experts say that’s because commission members disagree about the environmental and health impacts of transgenics, making it hard for supporters of license requests to muster a two-thirds majority. By dropping the approval threshold to a simple majority, analysts say, the new law will likely lead to the commercial cultivation here of various new varieties of gene-altered plants.

Applications awaiting CTNBio’s consideration include plans by Monsanto to market two types of insect-resistant corn (Guardian and Roundup Ready) and one type of herbicide-tolerant corn (Roundup Ready 1455); by Syngenta to sell two varieties of insect-resistant corn (ICP-4 and Bt11) and one type of herbicide-tolerant corn; by Bayer to market single varieties of herbicide-tolerant corn, cotton and rice (all LibertyLink); and by Dow, to sell insect-resistant cotton. Also pending are 25 requests for experimental transgenic plantings—mainly of soy and cotton varieties. Monsanto made 13 of these requests and Syngenta made seven.

Debate about impact

CTNBio members disagree about how much transgenic farming will expand under the new law. Jairon Nascimento, CTNBio’s administrative director, asserts gene-altered crops are cheaper than conventional ones, so farmers will switch to transgenics as more of them are approved.

Luiz Antonio Barreto de Castro, a Brazilian Science and Technology Ministry official serving on the CTNBio, says transgenic soy now accounts for 50% of all the soy produced in Brazil. He forecasts that share will grow to 60%-70% within five years.

Barreto de Castro adds that as the CTNBio approves more varieties of transgenic cotton, the gene-altered varieties will almost completely replace conventional ones. That, he says, is because transgenic cotton requires just one herbicide, not the multitude used on conventional cotton. Also, cotton is a not a food crop, and thus comes with no human health risks. He says gene-altered corn, meanwhile, will likely account for 40%-50% of the corn grown in Brazil within five years.

Nodari of the Environment Ministry, who also serves on the CTNBio, doesn’t see a massive shift to gene-altered seeds. “Farmers will more readily try new types of transgenic soy because it self-fertilizes and doesn’t risk contaminating non-transgenic crops,” Nodari says. “But farmers will much less readily try transgenic corn, rice and cotton because, as these crops are cross-fertilized, they can easily contaminate their non-transgenic crops.”

Such contamination, he notes, would make it harder for such farmers to continue selling non-transgenic products to countries where there’s a strong market for them. Nodari adds that Roundup Ready soy has not been accepted as widely here as had been expected. “There are still strong European and Japanese markets for non-transgenic soy,” he says. “And southern farmers complain weeds are growing resistant to Roundup Ready, forcing them to use other herbicides, thus raising costs.”

- Michael Kepp

Contacts
Luis Antonio Barreto de Castro
Secretary of Research & Development
Brazilian Science and Technology Ministry
Brasília, Brazil
Tel: +(55 61) 3317-8128
Email: lbarreto@mct.gov.br
Marcus Braga
Workers’ Party (PT)
Brazilian Chamber of Deputies
Brasília, Brazil
Tel: +(55 61) 3215-9104
Email: marcus.braga@camara.gov.br
Jairon Nascimento
Administrative Director
CTNBio
Brasília, Brazil
Tel: +(55 61) 3411-5516
Email: jalcir@mct.gov.br
Rubens Nodari
Genetic Resources Manager
Environment Ministry
Brasília, Brazil
Tel: +(55 61) 4009-9579
Fax: +(55 11) 4009-7587
Email: rubens.nodari@mma.gov.br
Sezifredo Paz
President
National Forum of Consumer Defense Groups
Curitiba, Santa Catarina state, Brazil
Tel: +(55 41) 3329-2526
Fax: +(55 41) 3322-5255
Email: sezi@matrix.com.br
Gabriela Vuolo
Coordinator
Transgenics Campaign
Greenpeace Brasil
São Paulo, Brazil
Email: gabriela.vuolo@br.greenpeace.org
Documents & Resources
  1. The new law (No. 11,460) is available (in Portuguese) at: Link