August 3, 2007

 

Brazil's Paranagua grooms port for GMO soy public silo

 

 

The port of Paranagua -- Brazil's main grain area -- is preparing its 100,000-tonne to receive the first genetically modified soybeans next week, following court's orders.

 

The government-controlled port has allowed GMO soybeans only in private warehouses since April 2006, after a previous court order.

 

The southern state of Parana has long been against GMO as it barred planting of modified seeds and shipping of GMO plants in its port in October 2003. Brazil has passed a new Biosafety Law legalising GMO soybean in 2005.

 

The Supreme Court has already declared Parana's actions on GMO prohibition unconstitutional however the state's private operators have kept battling over the port.

 

In July, a federal court in nearby Rio Grande do Sul state ruled that Paranagua must open its public silo to GMO soy, arguing the silo was being underutilised because of the ban. Almost all soy from Rio Grande do Sul is genetically modified.

 

But Parana arguing GMO soy, moving in the same grain elevators, might contaminate non-GMO products.

 

The port is appealing the court ruling, but it is also clearing its public silo of conventional soy in case it loses the appeal, a spokesman for the port authority said.

 

Luciano Cardoso of private port operator Grano Logistica said his company was preparing to move GMO soy through the public silo.

 

Starting next week, they will be storing GM soybeans, he said.

 

Paranagua used to be Brazil's main soy exporter before it banned GMO soybeans. Today the Santos Port holds the title, shipping over 30 percent of Brazil's soybeans regardless of transgenic origin.

 

The volumes of soybeans transported to Paranagua will not likely increase before next season's crop is harvested in 2008, Cardoso said. This year's harvest ended in May.

 

About 200,000 tonnes of GMO soybeans will move through the silo in the first half of August if Paranagua complies with the court, Cardoso said.

 

Paranagua had shipped 2.94 million tonnes of soybeans by July 30, down from 2.97 million tonnes over the same period in 2006.

 

Most soy in southern Brazil is already GMO, and the rest of the country's soy producers are expected to go transgenic in coming years.