[02/02/07] Syngenta Under Fire In Brazil GMO Dispute

SAO PAULO (Dow Jones)--The Swiss multinational seed and crop science corporation, Syngenta AG (SYT), is in the crosshairs of an anti-transgenic seed dispute it might not win in Brazil.

On Nov. 9, for the first time ever in a Latin America nation, Syngenta had one of its genetically modified crop research facilities shut down and expropriated by the Parana state government in southern Brazil. No financial figure has been given, but some estimate losses in the millions of dollars for Syngenta.

The 123-hectare property was located roughly six kilometers from the Iguacu National Park in western Parana state. The park is also home to the immense Iguacu Falls on the Brazil-Argentine border, and is considered a world historic landmark by the United Nations.

Parana governor Roberto Requiao, a transgenic-foe since he was elected five years ago, signed a decree to confiscate the property in November on the grounds that it broke federal environmental laws. Those laws said genetically modified crops could not be planted within 10-kilometers of a nature reserve.

Syngenta argues it was given permission by the biosafety agency of the federal government, CTNBio, to test transgenic corn and soy on the site. Syngenta has owned the property since 1986 and in November managed to get a federal court to agree that the company had been operating legally in the area. Moreover, in early 2006, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva changed the 10-kilometer law. The distance between genetically-modified crops and nature reserves has been shrunk down to just 500 meters.

The Parana government, the Brazilian Environmental Protection Agency, known as Ibama, agrarian reform activists and their lawyers say the 500 meter ruling doesn't count for Syngenta because they were experimenting with the seeds before the presidential decree was signed. So far, theirs is the dominant view.

"Syngenta has been notified time and time again that they cannot plant, test, or do anything with GMO on that site and they have arrogantly ignored the state," said Roberto Requiao's spokesman Benedito Pires.

"They cannot plant there. CTNBio does not interpret the law. We are following the law. Syngenta has been fined for breaking that law and to this day they have not paid it," he said.

According to Andrea Vulcanes, the manager of Ibama Parana, the agency fined Syngenta 1 million Brazilian reals ($476,000) in March 2006. The company has contested the fined.

"We fined them because they cannot be testing GMOs near that park," Vulcanes said.

"We know what CTNBio and others have said and we are considering it. But whether we retract our fine our not, that doesn't mean Syngenta can get its property back from the state. That's a whole other matter," she said.

Syngenta sells over $8 billion in seeds and agrochemicals each year under the Callisto, Garst and Dual Gold brands to name a few. Only Monsanto and DuPont sell more.

This week, the company asked a Parana court to review the governor's decision to expropriate the land, located in Santa Tereza do Oeste. It marks the second time Syngenta has asked a court to get involved in the dispute with the state. Parana is one of Brazil's top two agricultural producers.

Syngenta's problems began in March when over 600 rural workers and unemployed peasants, that make up part of the Via Campesina agrarian reform movement, invaded the site. The occupation argued that the company had no rights to plant genetically modified crops in the area.

They remained on the property for months before police finally kicked them out. Once Requiao said he was interested in turning the site into a center for the study of environmentally friendly agriculture, Via Campesina invaded again, arguing they had to harvest the corn they planted to eat during their time there. Parana is already the home to an agro-ecology center. It is run by some members of the Landless Rural Workers Movement, or the MST, long considered an arch rival of middle class and elite farmers and land owners.

Requiao's anti-transgenic policies have been the result of pressure groups like the MST and others.

"The anti-GMO movement is very different here than it is in Argentina or the U.S. There are social movements of small farmers who are very much against transgenics and they will continue pressuring the governments here," said Darci Frigo, a lawyer for the group Terra de Direitos in Parana.

The group specializes in labor rights. Frigo was the lawyer who alerted Ibama to the Syngenta property being inside the transgenic-seeds buffer zone set by the government.

Small producers argue that genetically modified seeds cross-pollinate with other local varieties, harming biodiversity. It also makes it harder for farmers to sell once their crops have been contaminated, because if it is discovered that their plants have genetically modified traits from Monsanto, currently the only transgenic brand allowed for sale here, those farmers will have to pay royalty payments for the seeds.

Monsanto has genetically modified soy and cotton in the Brazil market and partners with a handful of companies to make varieties of those seeds.

Requiao has fought Parana transgenics and won small victories in the past. He banned transgenic crop exports from the massive Paranagua port for some four years. But in 2006, by the order of a federal judge, the port was required to permit genetically modified soybean exports once again. Syngenta is hoping a similar ruling will fall in favor of the company in the near future and they can move back in to Santa Tereza do Oeste.

Brazil is the world's No. 2 soy producer behind the U.S.

Source: Kenneth Rapoza; Dow Jones Newswires; 55-11-3145-1488

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