Categories: Brazil
      Date: Jun 21, 2006
     Title: Brazilian illegal transgenic cotton fields will be destroyed

The Brazilian National Biosafety Commission (CNTBio) decided to destroyed the illegal transgenic cotton plantations

Yesterday, the Brazilian National Biosafety Commission (CNTBio), decided to recommend the chemical and mecanical destruction of the illegal transgenic cotton plantations in addition to a field survey for a period of six months of the fields where the crop will be destroyed.

The Ministry of Agriculture (MA) had informed the National Biosafety Commission that it had prohibited the cultivation of sixteen thousand hectares of plantations sowed with smuggled GE cotton seeds in more more than twenty exploitations in the States of Mato Grosso, Goias, Bahia, Mato Grosso do Sul and Minas Gerais. The MA estimates that this year total surface of  "authorized" GE cotton will be of two hundred thousand hectares.

For the moment, the only transgenic cotton variety authorized by the CNTBio is the Bollgard from the multinational Monsanto which is resistant to the insects. However, since the month of May of this year, the services of the MA have detected, others Bollgard varieties as well as Round Ready ones, also produced by the amercian multinational.

The destruction of the illegal cotton fields will be carried out by application of a drying chemical and gridding of all the crops found on the fields that will then be incorporated in the organic material of the soil.

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