April 30, 2004

Spain Bans Syngenta's GM Corn
 

Spain, the only European Union country to grow genetically modified crops commercially, has banned the planting of a Syngenta AG corn variety as of January, saying it may increase resistance to antibiotics.

According to the statement on the website of the Spain's food-safety agency, the Bt176 variety of feed corn from Syngenta, the world's biggest maker of agricultural chemicals, "will no longer be allowed to be sown or cultivated'. Syngenta, which is based in Basel, Switzerland, has been selling the corn in Spain since 1998.

Gene-altered crops accounted for 3 percent of Syngenta's sales of $6.6 billion last year. In particular, Bt176 occupies almost two-thirds of the 32,000 hectares (79,000 acres) of Spanish land where such crops are grown and 5 percent of the country's total cornfields.

"We're strongly in favor of transparency, of giving growers and consumers the freedom to choose what they want,'' said Payer, the company's spokesman. He called the decision "obviously political.''

Spain's Socialist Party took control of the government on April 17. This is about a month after defeating the Popular Party in an election held barely three days after the country's worst-ever terrorist attack. The train bombings in Madrid killed at least 191 people and injured more than 1,400.

Spain's food-safety agency banned Bt176 after the European Food Safety Authority published scientific advice on bio-engineered plants, according to Ricardo Lopez de Haro, director of Spain's Office of Crop Varieties.

The Spanish agency reveals the Syngenta corn contains a marker gene that the EU agency said should be restricted to field trials. That is because there is a possibility it may confer resistance to ampicillin. The European Commission has not made any decision based on the advice yet.

The United States, the world's biggest producer and user of biotech products, is challenging the EU's six-year moratorium on commercial GM food and crop approvals at the World Trade Organization in Geneva.

The European Commission won authority from EU members to end the ban last week and allow the import of a Syngenta gene-modified sweet corn, Bt11. Syngenta has applied for approval to cultivate Bt11 in the EU, Payer said.