Since the first of the year, the momentum in Latin America’s decade-long GMO commercialisation debate has shifted toward acceptance. With the exception of Argentina, legislative deadlocks have blocked passage of comprehensive biosafety laws. As a result, approval will likely be achieved via federal court rulings and the issuance of official ministerial norms, reports Steve Lewis.
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Since the first of the year, the momentum in Latin America’s decade-long GMO commercialisation debate has shifted toward acceptance. With the exception of Argentina, legislative deadlocks have blocked passage of comprehensive biosafety laws. As a result, approval will likely be achieved via federal court rulings and issuance official ministerial norms, reports Steven Lewis
Since the new year, the governments of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico have leaned toward approving the commercialisation of GMOs. Most regimes are attempting to depoliticise the issue by circumventing the legislative branch and addressing it via the federal courts or official norms.
Federal legislatures in the region have proven to be generally ineffective in coming to grips with the issue of legalising GMOs. Over the past decade, countless bills have been introduced, yet Argentina is the only nation that has passed a comprehensive biosafety law addressing the issue of commercialisation.
Three largest food producers remain poles apart
Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, Latin America’s three leading food-producing nations, have taken radically different approaches to the GM issue. Their respective stances can be summed up as acceptance (Argentina), denial (Brazil), and trepidation (Mexico). Of the three, Brazil’s stance proved least viable because large-scale plantings of Roundup ready (RR) soybeans in the southern states became one of Latin America’s worst kept secrets.
“The strong pro-GM stance of the US cannot be ignored “
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By GlobalDataThe three nations that have most directly impacted Latin America’s stance on GM foods are Argentina, China, and the US. Since it is Latin America’s leading export destination by far, the strong pro-GM stance of the US cannot easily be ignored. US trade and agricultural officials, as well as representatives of the nation’s leading biotechnology firms, have actively promoted GMO commercialisation in Latin America. Their greatest successes have been in the agricultural sector because Latin American farmers are desperately clamouring to become globally cost competitive in the face of subsidised competition from Europe and North America.
China inadvertently promoted GM cause in Brazil
In January of this year, China unwittingly tilted the scales in favour of GM commercialisation in South America by rejecting a Brazilian petition to expand its soybean exports. The rejection stemmed from Brazil’s inability to provide documentation proving that its GM soybeans were safe for human consumption. Brazil found itself in the impossible position of having to document the safety of a substantial proportion of its soybean crop (RR soybeans) while officially denying that commercial GMO production existed within its boundaries.
Faced with the prospect of losing Chinese market share, Brazil’s LuizInacio “Lula” da Silva regime quickly admitted that Brazil produces RR soybeans. During February, the Lula regime announced the formation of a multi-ministerial task force that is tasked with taking a stand on the issue of GMO commercialisation within 30 days.
Slack border controls
Argentina also had an unwitting but weighty influence on the GMO stance of its MERCOSUR trade partners (Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay). Porous international borders in the region have made it impossible to stem the flow of GM seeds out of Argentina. Anxious to reduce production costs, farmers in the other MERCOSUR nations have been more than willing to take the risk of planting GM seeds smuggled in from Argentina. Cracking down on farmers who illegally plant GM crops has proven to be politically unviable given the inevitable backlash that would result from jailing or otherwise penalising thousands of farmers that account for a substantial percentage of the region’s food supply.
“There is no risk in consuming GM foods approved in other parts of the world”
South America came another step closer to GMO commercialisation when Chile’s National Commission for Biotechnology Development announced that it has surmounted the major hurdles standing in the way of GMO commercialisation. The Commission’s report stated, “The empirical evidence available to the Commission indicates categorically and unequivocally that there is no risk in consuming (GM) foods that have been approved in other parts of the world.”
The pressure is on
Late in January, Colombian agriculture minister Carlos Gustavo Cano announced that the government would promote GMO commercialisation in order to modernise the agricultural sector. The pressure is on to approve commercialisation because GM crops being tested by Colombian research entities are ready for preliminary commercial testing. The first crop scheduled for testing is cotton, but corn and soybeans are nearing that stage.
During January, Mexico’s executive branch made its position known when the agriculture and environment ministers jointly released a draft official norm that supports GMO commercialisation. The draft states, “GMOs offer the potential for achieving agricultural production that is more sustainable and less harmful to the environment.”
The ministers opted for an official norm because four (pro- and anti-) GMO bills are now before the federal legislature, but none of them is likely to be passed in the foreseeable future. The ministers stressed a norm is preferable to a law because it can be modified after a period of five years in order to accommodate new developments in the field.
Still a long road ahead
Although the momentum in Latin America seems to have shifted in the direction of GMO approval, implementation will be a long process. In all cases, biosafety committees will be tasked with reviewing each GMO in detail before approving commercialisation. GM foods likely to gain approval first are RR soybeans and others that already have a long and successful track record elsewhere.
