Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
In export markets, Brazil used its nominal GM-free status to seek
price premiums. This effort however was undercut when it became clear
that many farmers in Rio Grande do Sul had started growing GM soy-
beans illegally, using seeds smuggled from Argentina. Like other devel-
oping countries, Brazil was at a crossroads: should the country adopt
a promotional or a preventive policy for GM foods? Different policies
and laws were being adopted in some developing countries to respond to
opportunities and challenges that GM foods were creating.
At first, rapid scientific advances in genetic engineering and genomics
opened new technological options to address some of the develop-
ing world's food production aspirations, but uncertainties about risks
to human health and environmental quality generated concerns about
potential negative impacts. As expectations of benefits and uncertainty
about risks increased, policy makers in developing countries were con-
fronted with the challenge of ensuring that their countries shared the
benefits of technology while at the same time managed risks, actual and
perceived.
In the next stage, growing interest and investment in research and
technology occurred in developing countries. During this stage, Brazil
sought to enlarge its economic competitiveness. Like other developing
countries, it began to anticipate and invest in new technological trajecto-
ries, respond to risk concerns, and start to grow and export GM crops.
II. The Shift in Governing GMCrops in Brazil
A.NGOsvs.Monsanto
On January 5, 1995, Brazil's first Biosafety Law was enacted. 13 This law
provided the means to control the use of genetic engineering techniques
in the construction, cultivation, manipulation, transportation, market-
ing, consumption, release, and disposal of genetically modified organisms
13 Statute No. 8974, which was enacted by Decrees Nos. 1752, dated December 20, 1995,
and 2577, dated April 10, 1998.
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