Brazil

Posted: Jun 22, 2006

Monsanto revised the value of the royalties that will have to be paid by producers of Mato grosso do Sul.

After several months of negociations with representants of soy cooperatives, Monsanto revised the value of the royalties that will have to be paid by producers for this year harvest season.

Monsanto responded to the demands of the producers of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul who expressed their concerns over the value of the « indemnization » for the use of the Round up Ready technology in fields planted with illegal transgenic soy seeds in this State, following a very good productivity during this harvest season.

Nowadays, Monsanto has implemented a mix mecanism for the collection of its royalties, by which a producer who buys a certified RR seed has to pay a royalty of thirty five cents per kilo or approximatly fourteen US$ for a bag of 40 kilos, this value has not been addressed by the negociations. On this other a producer who has planted illegal transgenic RR seeds or seeds coming from past harvests had to pay an indemnization equal to 2 % of the value of the soy harvested. This is on this amount  that the negociations took place.

Until now, Monsanto had stipulated production averages for each State, based on the productivity of conventional soy of the last seven years. This estimation being the basis of calculation for the amount of grain a producer, that has bought certified RR seeds, is allowed to commercialise. By doing this, Monsanto makes sure that any producer that goes beyond its « credit of production » is forced to pay the indemnization when selling its production.

Following negociations the indemnization that the producers of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul will have to paid will be similar to the one of the producers of the State of Mato Grosso.

For Mato Grosso do Sul Monsanto had stipulated an average of 71 kilos for each kilo of seeds used, which is equal to a productivity of 4 260 kilos per hectare. Now, Monsanto has increased this average to 74 kilos or 4 440 kilos per hectare.

According to the Federation of Agriculture of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul (Famasul), for each 74 kilos of transgenic grain harvested, the producer will have to pay an indemnization equal to the price of one kilo of seed. Therefore, the negociations resulted in a saving over 180 kilos of soy per hectare per producer, which will be exempted from the indemnization tax. A loss of profits evaluated at several millions of dollars for the multinational.


More information. Etienne Vernet. e.vernet@terra.com.br

Print