September 6, 2007

Monsanto expects Brazil to increase GM soy plantings in 2007/08

Transgenic grain producer Monsanto expects Brazil to increase plantings of genetically-modified soy and cotton in the 2007-08 crops, Monsanto soy manager Andre Franco said Wednesday (September 5).

Franco said the company expects a 7 to 10 percent volume increase in its Roundup Ready soybeans in the upcoming planting season. Roughly 50 percent of Brazil's 20.9 million hectares of soy were transgenic. Monsanto's Roundup Ready is currently the only transgenic soy permitted in Brazil. Various companies are licensed to make varieties of Monsanto's transgenic soy for the Brazilian market, however, including national crop science institute, Embrapa.

Monsanto said at a press conference in Sao Paulo on Wednesday that it expects an increase in its Bollgard transgenic cotton in 2007-08, as well. Roughly 23 percent of the 2006-07 cotton crop was transgenic, all of it a variety of Monsanto's Bollgard brand, the only transgenic cotton seed permitted in Brazil at this time.

Brazil is the world's fifth-largest cotton producer, and No. 2 soy producer behind the US.