Brazil rules GM crops illegal, but may sell '03 crop
BRASILIA, Brazil, March 6 (Reuters) - Brazil's new government on Thursday confirmed genetically modified plantings of key crops like soy were illegal but said it would seek legal ways to market what has been planted so far.
"The government considers that, as a result of a control fault by the previous government, there have been plantings of transgenic soy, which represents an illegality," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's spokesman Andre Singer told reporters.
But Singer, who spoke after a government meeting to discuss the issue, said the agriculture sector was facing a social and economic problem with tens of thousands of farmers depending on this year's harvest, part of which is transgenic.
He did not say whether the plan was to sell existing genetically modified crops at home or abroad. Brazil is the world's No. 2 soybean producer and exporter. The decision should at least partly satisfy producers.
Brazil is the last major soybean exporter to still ban GM crops but it has been finding it increasingly difficult to maintain GM-free status as farmers opted in growing numbers for more profitable genetically modified soybeans.
Meanwhile, environmental and consumer groups have been resisting any moves to allow the sale of transgenic products, citing safety concerns.
Harvesting is already well under way in Mato Grosso and Parana, the two main soy producing states, and will soon start in No. 3 Rio Grande do Sul.
Market sources say up to 80 percent of the crop is planted with transgenic beans, although Agriculture Minister Roberto Rodrigues has said recently the state had only eight percent of the transgenic crop.
cc Reuters 03/07/2003 05:36 a.m.CDT