1.Activists leave occupied Syngenta GMO farm in Brazil
2.Brazil Biotech Commission: No Approval on Corn, Cotton GMO
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1.Activists leave occupied Syngenta GMO farm in Brazil
MarrketWatch, Nov 3, 2006 http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/story.aspx?siteid=mktw&guid=%7BBC8396B1-ECFB-4AAA-BF78-037D54B0517F%7D
SAO PAULO (MarketWatch) -- Activists from the international anti-transgenic farming and agrarian reform group, Via Campesina, left a Syngenta Seeds (SYT) experimental farm in Parana state on Friday that some 300 people had occupied since March, the company said.
Syngenta is one of Brazil's largest researchers of genetically modified organisms. The company sells agrochemicals.
The group left the property peacefully by order of a Parana judge, according to a story published Friday by Gazeta Mercantil, a Brazilian business daily.
The group invaded Syngenta's experimental soy and corn fields in protest of the company's GMO studies and the farms proximity to Iguacu National Park in western Parana. The government's biosafety agency, CTNBio, recently changed a buffer zone between the park and farms to 500 meters instead of 10 kilometers. No GMO plants were permitted in the buffer zone where Syngenta is located.
However, Syngenta said that the fields were in areas permitted by CTNBio even though the property was located just two kilometers away from Iguacu park, Syngenta press secretary Paulo Tunin told Dow Jones Newswires.
CTNBio was unavailable for comment.
Tunin said research activity stopped on the property immediately after the farm was invaded on March 14, 2006, and will only return after orders from Syngenta's world headquarters in Switzerland.
The activists from Via Campesina, most of them extremely poor, left the property over the last three days and are camped out in a small, makeshift huts along the side of the road near the farm.
The Iguacu National Park is home to the 2.5-mile-long Iguacu Falls, considered a National Heritage of Mankind by the United Nations.
Only Monsanto's Roundup Ready GMO soybean and Bollgard GMO cotton are permitted in Brazil at this time. A handful of companies are licensed to make varieties of Monsanto's seeds for sale in the local market.
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2.Brazil Biotech Commission: No Approval on Corn, Cotton GMO
Source:Dow Jones Newswires Author:n/a via Food Security and Ag-Biotech News
This article says farmers and seed companies complain that the Biosafety Commission of Brazil (CTNBio) takes too long to approve field trials of genetically modified (GM) crops and even longer to authorize their commercialization. Only Monsanto's Bt cotton and herbicide-resistant "Roundup Ready" GM cotton are approved for commercial use in Brazil.
CTNBio, which meets monthly, was unable to reach a consensus last month October regarding technical studies on GM cotton and corn varieties from Bayer CropScience, Monsanto, and Syngenta.
[According to a related article (Crop Biotech Update; November 3), CTNBio President Walter Colli says, "The possibilities for Brazil to arrive at new decisions pertaining [to] the commercial release of biotech crops this year is practically null." Leila Oda, president of the Brazilian National Biosafety Association (ANBIO), says the reason for the slow pace is that CTNBio's 54 members are composed of two groups: one that is committed to speeding the process of approvals and the other that intends to delay it.]
The article can be viewed online at the link below.
http://news.morningstar.com/news/DJ/M10/D19/200610191204DOWJONESDJONLINE000949.html?pgid=qtqnNews5
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