1.Mexico to set up GMO rules within two weeks
2.Brazil commission to discuss new biotech corn, cotton types
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1.Mexico to set up GMO rules within two weeks
By Adriana Barrera Reuters, 18 Oct 2006
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=N18394498&WTmodLoc=World-R5-Alertnet-5

MEXICO CITY, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Mexico will establish rules within two weeks allowing biotech companies to plant test crops of genetically modified, or GMO, corn seeds, the government said on Wednesday.

Mexico, widely considered the origin of many of the world's corn varieties, recently prohibited biotech firms Monsanto <MON.N>, Pioneer Hi-Bred International <DD.N> and Dow AgroSciences <DOW.N> from planting GMO test crops.

Javier Trujillo, head of the agricultural health service in Mexico, told Reuters the permits were rejected because the government had not completed a map of native corn species and a scheme to protect those species, both legally required for GMO tests in Mexico.

"I expect these two requirements will be published in the government journal in one or two weeks," he said.

The companies would be allowed to plant GMO test crops in Mexico after that, Trujillo said.

U.S.-based Monsanto, the GMO industry leader, was not immediately available for comment.

Mexico, which prides itself as the historical home of corn, is a big consumer of U.S. corn and corn seeds but is a major corn producer. About a million mostly poor farmers plant the crop, often on small plots in remote areas.

About 500 larger corn farmers in the north of the country are lobbying the government to allow them to use GMO seed, which they say would boost yields by around 10 percent.

Mexican farmers struggle to compete with their northern neighbors, who enjoy better crop yields and government subsidies.

Environment group Greenpeace warned the genetic diversity of corn in Mexico, where it has been cultivated for thousands of years, would be put at risk by the widespread use of GMO seeds.

"It is really stupid to risk contaminating a genetic origin center that has an incredible ecological richness just to please 500 people, big farmers," said Gustavo Ampugnani, who heads the group's anti-GMO campaign in Mexico.

In 2001, researchers discovered native corn strains in the southern state of Oaxaca, where some of the earliest evidence of domesticated corn comes from, had cross-bred with transgenic DNA.

(Additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel)

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2.Brazil commission to discuss new biotech corn, cotton types
MarketWatch from Dow Jones, Oct 18 2006 http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?dist=newsfinder&siteid=mktw&guid=%7B971CC577-59D3-4B37-AAF1-807BA8F1FFD7%7D

SAO PAULO (MarketWatch) -- Brazil's biosafety commission will review technical studies on three corn and three cotton transgenic plants on Wednesday following pressure from farmers and seed companies who said the commission was moving too slow to approve GMO studies for both field tests and commercial use.

The commission, known as CTNBio, meets monthly. No genetically modified organisms were approved for field tests or commercial use in the last meeting, the group's spokeswoman said.

The last GMOs permitted were Monsanto's Bollgard cotton and Roundup Ready soybeans in 2005.

Monsanto's Roundup Ready soy was first approved in 1998 but later suspended on political and activist pressure.

On the list of items requesting commercial restrictions to be lifted are biotech corn resistant to insects from Syngenta (SYT) and Monsanto (MON). For cotton, Bayer CropScience's LibertyLink and Monsanto's Roundup Ready are also on Wednesday's agenda.

If those products are approved by CTNBio, it's up to a government committee made up of analysts from various government departments who make "political and economic decisions" whether to permit the product for commercial use, CTNBio said.

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