Chinese govt meets Brazil coops to buy non-GMO


Nov 19, 2001 (FWN Financial via COMTEX) -- A Chinese 
government mission met with leaders of cooperatives from 
the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul on Friday 
to negotiate orders of non-genetically modified soybeans 
from the 2001- 02 crop, Rio Grande do Sul Cooperatives 
Organization (OCERGS) president Vicente Bogo told FWN 
Monday. He said the meeting was fruitful and the Chinese 
delegation will return in January to access the progress of 
the crop and establish sanitary norms for imports from the 
2001-02 crop, harvested from March. "It is too earlier to 
talk about export quantities, but I can say the Chinese 
want to use us as a major source of soybeans," Bogo said. 

 Brazilian analysts note China is particularly keen to 
secure produce from Brazil due to the non-transgenic status 
of the crop. In the first nine months of 2001 China 
imported 3.113 million tonnes of the 14.428 million tonnes 
exported sent out of Brazil. Sales this year are 75% up on 
the same period one year ago. Bogo said that the 
cooperatives would have no problem guaranteeing the 
soybeans sold to China are non-GMO despite the fact it is 
universally acknowledged that a significant portion of Rio 
Grande do Sul's crop are transgenic. Indeed, the State's 
Agriculture Secretariat admits that up to 20% of its crop 
is transgenic, despite the fact that there is a court 
injunction against planting such seeds on Brazilian soil. 

 Other sources believe the true figure to be much higher. 
The Brazilian Seed Producers Association (ABRASEM) 
estimates that 65-80% of the state's production will be 
genetically modified in the coming year. Originally, much 
of the seed was smuggled in across the border with 
neighboring Argentina. But ABRASEM Director Joao Henrique 
Hummel explained that this year the vast majority of the 
seeds have been illicitly produced within the state. Rio 
Grande do Sul exported 2.816 million tonnes of soybeans in 
the January- September period of 2001, compared with 1.404 
million tonnes in the whole of 2000. The state produced an 
all-time record soybean harvest of 7.1 million tonnes in 
2001, and Safras e Mercado estimate that the crop will rise 
to 7.590 million tonnes in the coming year, assuming the 
weather holds. ----- Alastair Stewart, FWN, 5511 3071 3990 
astewartuol.com.br (C) Copyright 2001 FWN -0- The Bridge ID 
for this story is 46956 Copyright 2001