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Combine
harvesters crop a soybean field in Campo Novo do Parecis
(AFP/File, Yasuyoshi
Chiba)
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CAMPO NOVO
DE PARECIS, Brazil — Illegally smuggled into Brazil 14 years ago, transgenic
soy has proved a boon to domestic farmers and now accounts for 85 percent of
total production.
But five
million Brazilian farmers are now locked in a legal feud with US biotech giant
Monsanto, the GM soy seed manufacturer, and are refusing to pay crop royalties.
In the
mid-1990s Monsanto began commercializing its genetically modified soy in the
United States.
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.
The first
transgenic soy seeds were illegally smuggled into Brazil from neighboring
Argentina in 1998 and their use was banned and subject to prosecution until the
last decade, according to the state-owned Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural
Research (EMBRAPA).
The ban has
since been lifted and now 85 percent of the country's soybean crop (25 million
hectares or 62 million acres) is genetically modified, according to Alexandre
Cattelan, an EMBRAPA researcher.
Last year,
Brazil was the world's second producer and exporter of soybean, behind the
United States.
Sales of GM
soy -- which is used for animal feed, soybean oil or biofuel -- reached a
whopping $24.1 billion and made up 26 percent of Brazil's farm exports last
year. China is the main customer of Brazilian soy.
But four
years ago, five million big and small Brazilian producers filed a lawsuit
against Monsanto, accusing the US chemical giant of unduly collecting two
percent of sales of their annual harvest.
Since
2003-2004, Monsanto has demanded that producers of transgenic soy pay it two
percent of their sales as crop royalties, Neri Perin, a representative of big
producers, told AFP.
Lawyers for
the producers say this means that their clients end up paying twice for the
seed.
"Monsanto
gets paid when it sell the seeds. The law gives producers the right to multiply
the seeds they buy and nowhere in the world is there a requirement to pay
(again). Producers are in effect paying a private tax on production," said
lawyer Jane Berwanger.
In April, a
judge in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, Giovanni Conti,
ruled in favor of the producers and ordered Monsanto to return royalties paid
since 2004 or a minimum of $2 billion.
Monsanto
appealed and a federal court is to rule on the case by 2014.
In the
meantime, the US company said it was still being paid crop royalties.
At the same
time, transgenic soy cultivation is spreading like wildfire across Brazil,
despite protests from environmentalists who say it leads to increased
deforestation and from experts who say it results in less farm jobs.
"Transgenic
soy occupies 44 percent of land under grain cultivation but represents only 5.5
percent of farm jobs," said Sergio Schlesinger, a researcher who slammed
the advance of soybean monoculture in his book "the grain that grew too
much."
He said
this highly mechanized monoculture requires little labor and leads to the
expulsion of thousands of farm workers.
After its
initial ban on GM soy, the Brazilian government is now investing in research to
develop this type of technology.
Transgenic
soy is now grown in 17 of the country's 26 states, with the largest production
in Mato Grosso, Parana and Rio Grande do Sul.
Although
still the largest exporting country, the United States has lost the dominant
position it once had in the global soy trade. Brazil, Argentina, China and
India have all become major players as the world's demand for soy as food,
vegetable oil, and animal feed has continued to increase.
Given the
amount of available arable land and water resources in Brazil, experts expect
this South American giant to eventually become the number one soybean-producing
nation.
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