December 22, 2003

 

Brazil Benefit From Bumper GM Soybean Crops

 

Farmers in Southern Brazil are likely to benefit from bumper genetically modified (GM) soybean crops, where they work the fields in air-conditioned tractors and drive to town in big new pickups.

 

The GM seeds are to provide healthier yields at lower costs than conventional soy. They originally were smuggled in during a longstanding legal ban on "transgenic seed."

 

While Brazil's ban didn't stop many farmers, it made it impossible for Monsanto Co. to collect seed revenues or crop royalties, as it does from farmers in the United States and elsewhere.

 

American farmers are livid, but growers in towns like Julio de Castilhos are beaming.

 

"Every year it's just getting better," said 24-year-old Rodrigo Martins, who started farming soy at age 17 and gave up law schooling due to massive profits reaped. "With GM soy, you produce lots more profits in six months instead of a year, and it's not as much work."

 

In response to soaring world demand for soy used in products ranging from animal feed to processed food, Brazil's production has skyrocketed.

 

Farmers in soybean-growing states such as Arkansas - where more than 23 million acres are planted a year, more than any other crop - have watched Brazil's soybean expansion with alarm.

 

For decades, the United States was the world's main provider of soybeans, but Brazil is expected to become the world's top exporter next year.

 

A small number of American farmers have bought farmland in Brazil, in some cases even giving up their American operations for more profitable Brazilian farms.

 

An estimated 10 - 20 % of Brazil's entire soy crop is grown with seeds smuggled in from neighboring countries and replicated locally. In Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's third-largest soy growing state, transgenic seeds are used to produce up to 90% of the annual harvest, experts say.

 

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, RIowa, blames Brazil's government - which rarely enforced a long-standing ban on transgenic soy - for allowing the situation to get out of control.

 

Brazil's soy farmers are getting what amounts to an indirect subsidy, he contends, and are robbing Monsanto of money to develop new seeds that would help American farmers become more competitive. "It's unfair competition," Grassley said.

 

Monsanto declines comment on how much money it has lost, how much it could make in Brazil from the country's soy producers, and won't say how much it would charge. Brazilian farmers acknowledge using illegal seed, but say their actions are forcing the government to legalize transgenic soy. Brazil permitted the planting of transgenic soy for the first time this season.

 

A proposed bill in the U.S. Congress would create the first U.S. rules allowing biotechnology in agriculture. Monsanto's soy seeds are spliced with a bacterium's gene that makes the plants immune to the company's popular herbicide Roundup, which farmers can then use to kill weeds while the soy plants flourish. Nearly 80% of the soy crop in the United States is genetically engineered. Critics are worried about long-term environmental effects. Brazil's ban was in line with that of most European countries, which do not permit genetically engineered crops.