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Brazil measure ignites congressional GM soy debate (Monday, April 7, 2003 -- CropChoice news) -- Reuters: BRASILIA, Brazil - A draft measure proposed last week by the new government to rein in Brazil's rampant illegal transgenic soy trade unleashed a storm of 70 proposals to alter the measure in Congress.
Statesmen drew sides in debate on the lower house floor, some pushing for
stricter enforcement of Brazil's ban on genetically modified crops, to
which the former government had turned a blind eye for years.
By unofficial estimates, transgenic soy seeds, smuggled from Argentina
where they are legal, are responsible for as much as 30 percent of Brazil's
record 50-million-tonne crop - the world's second largest after the United
States, according to the Association of Brazilian Seed Producers (Abrasem).
Others statesmen said the government proposal to clamp down on the huge
black market in GM seeds and illicit plantings was a step backward and
called for a permanent lifting of the ban.
Although Agriculture Minister Roberto Rodrigues has refrained from voicing
support of biotechnology in agriculture since he took office this year,
when he opened the floor debate last week he said: "Brazil cannot miss the
train of history and deny new technologies."
"The society was stirred up by this measure, it is good to see that the
legislature is too," Rodrigues said.
But the new government said officially last month that it would uphold
Brazil's ban and proposed provisional measure 113 last week in an effort to
gain control of illegal GM soy planting.
Measure 113 calls for the testing of nearly the entire soy crop for GM, the
separation of conventional soy from GM and the temporary legalization of
sales of new crop GM soy with labels until January 2004, after which time
GM would again be banned.
AWESOME TASK
Nearly half the new crop has been harvested without segregation of GM soy
and, by the time the measure leaves committee, the whole crop would have
been harvested. And GM soy has been running unsegregated through the food
system here for years.
Only a fraction of the logistic, storage and processing chain is equipped
to separate GM from conventional soy. Food processors in Brazil have never
labeled for GM contents and there is no standard for testing the genetic
integrity of a truck or silo of soy.
Federal representative Roberto Freire, an author of one of the amendments
to 113 put forth last week, questioned the government's argument behind
making GM soy sales illegal again in 2004 because they believe GM soy could
be harmful.
"(The government) wants to say that only after January (2004) it's going to
do harm?" Freire asked journalists. "This is backward. If it was harmful
the government wouldn't have liberated the sale of the crop. It would be
irresponsible."
Freire's amendment calls for easing restrictions on labeling of foods with
GM, the legalization of GM seed trading and the suppression of any fines
for planting GM soy, as is currently proposed by 113.
The lower house will install a special committee by next Wednesday to wade
through the 70 proposed amendments and should put a measure before a
plenary vote by May 10, about the time when the soy harvest traditionally
ends here. | |
