Spain to Ban Syngenta Corn, EU'S Biggest Gene-Altered Crop 

April 29 (Bloomberg) -- Spain, the only European Union country 
where genetically modified crops are commercially grown, banned 
the planting of a Syngenta AG corn variety as of January, saying 
it may increase resistance to antibiotics. 

The Bt176 variety of feed corn from Syngenta, the world's biggest 
maker of agricultural chemicals, ``will no longer be allowed to be 
sown or cultivated,'' Spain's food-safety agency said on its Web 
site. Syngenta, based in Basel, Switzerland, has sold the corn in 
Spain since 1998. 

Gene-altered crops accounted for 3 percent of Syngenta's sales of 
$6.6 billion last year, company spokesman Markus Payer said. Bt176 
occupies almost two-thirds of the 32,000 hectares (79,000 acres) 
of Spanish land where such crops are grown and 5 percent of the 
country's total cornfields, he said. 

``We're strongly in favor of transparency, of giving growers and 
consumers the freedom to choose what they want,'' Payer said in 
a telephone interview. He called the decision ``obviously political.'' 

Spain's Socialist Party took control of the government on April 17, 
about a month after defeating the Popular Party in an election held 
three days following the country's worst-ever terrorist attack. 
The train bombings in Madrid killed at least 191 people and injured 
more than 1,400. 

Marker Gene 

Spain's food-safety agency banned Bt176 after the European Food 
Safety Authority published scientific advice on bio- engineered plants, 
Ricardo Lopez de Haro, director of Spain's Office of Crop Varieties, 
said in an interview. 

The Syngenta corn contains a marker gene that the EU agency said 
should be restricted to field trials, because it may confer resistance 
to ampicillin, the Spanish agency said. The European Commission 
hasn't made any decision based on the advice. 

The U.S., the world's biggest producer and user of biotech products, 
is challenging the EU's six-year moratorium on commercial GM food 
and crop approvals at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. 

The European Commission won authority from EU members to end the ban 
last week and allow the import of a Syngenta gene-modified sweet corn, 
Bt11. Syngenta has applied for approval to cultivate Bt11 in the EU, 
Payer said. 
 


To contact the reporter for this story: Peter McGill in London on, or at pmcgill1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor for this story: Stephen Farr, or sfarr@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: April 29, 2004 12:19 EDT