April 23, 2007

No approval yet for Bayer CropScience's GM corn in Brazil

International seed maker Bayer CropScience will have to wait until next month to see whether Brazil's biosafety agency, CTNBio, will approve a commercial release of its LibertyLink transgenic corn.

Bayer's LibertyLink has been up for commercial approval by the agency since February. In March, Greenpeace International in Brazil shut down a meeting discussing the transgenic corn.

A CTNBio spokeswoman, Raquel Mortari, said the agency did not have time to discuss Bayer's LibertyLink because officials had urgent animal health vaccines to approve first.

She said the next CTNBio meeting would be on May 16-17. LibertyLink will be up for discussion once again.

Brazil currently does not permit the planting of any type of genetically modified corn.

LibertyLink corn is resistant to herbicides, helping farmers control the spread of weeds.

Bayer CropScience, a unit of Bayer AG, sells pesticides, herbicides and fungicides from its facilities in Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul states.

Corn is Brazil's no. 2 crop behind soybeans.