January 30, 2006

 

GM soy planted area increases in Brazil

 

 

GM soy is getting planted with more frequency in Brazil, up to 9.4 million hectares in the 2005/06 crop compared with 5 million hectares in 2004/05 crop year, the Agriculture Ministry said Friday in a news release.

 

Brazil farmers planted roughly 22 million hectares of soy.

 

As an example, the ministry cited Mato Grosso state soy farmer Jose Nardes, who planted his entire 2,000 hectares with GM soybeans for the 2005/06 crop, compared with 100 hectares of GM soy in the 2004/05 crop.

 

"The cost of production for GM seeds is, on average, 10 percent less than conventional seeds because I don't have to use herbicides ... and it's easier to control Asian soybean rust," Nardes said in the statement.

 

The Agriculture Ministry was quoting from a report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, or ISAAA, a non-profit organisation that promotes the cultivation of biotech crops around the world. ISAAA has offices in US, Kenya and the Philippines.

 

The Agriculture Ministry said northern Mato Grosso soy growers were increasingly turning to GM soy.

 

GM soy is considered highly polemic in Brazil, with Parana state outright banning the sale and farming of GM soy.

 

Brazil first temporarily permitted GM soy crops in 2004 and then permitted planting again in Sep 2005 for the current crop. The sale of GM soybeans is monitored by the government. Roughly 109,000 farmers, most of them in Rio Grande do Sul, use GM soy in at least part of their soy crop.

 

The government has not decided whether it will continue allowing farmers to plant GM soy. The current legislation is good only for this crop year. But most signs point to farmer choice down the road.

 

"The world is getting used to GMO. This is just the beginning stages of a long process," said Elisio Contini of the Agriculture Ministry's rural strategy division.