The first commercially planted transgenic seeds, those for herbicide-tolerant soybeans, were smuggled in from Argentina by farmers in the south, near the Argentine border.

At the time they were illegal: Brazil hummed and hawed about passing the necessary legislation but the farmers were not prepared to wait. After the US, Brazil is the second largest exporter of soybeans and their products; not unreasonably Brazilian farmers wanted the same agronomic advantages as their counterparts in Argentina.

By about 2003, the Brazilian Government recognised the inevitable, that GM-soya already constituted a significant fraction of the product in Brazil; quite how much was unclear because it was, after all, an illegal product, but amounts of between 20-40% of the total Brazilian crop were bandied about. Eventually, in 2005, GM-soya was legalised (see “As once in Brazil, so now in France” – http://www.cropgen.org/article_38.html).

Sizable quantities of the non-GM crop are still grown in the tropical north and constitute perhaps the last remaining source of commodity supplies of this crop anywhere in the world. Indeed, Russian sources said recently that in banning GM soya imports from that country, they would import non-GM beans from Brazil.

That opportunity might be short-lived because once the trait has been bred into tropical soybean varieties it is likely that the northern Brazilian farmers will follow their colleagues in the south.
Meanwhile, next year Brazil is increasing the acreage of transgenic soybeans so that 40%-50% of the total will be GM. This would mean up to 11 million hectares, an increase of perhaps 15% compared with last year’s figure.

Reports from Brazil note that in 2005, the technology covered about 30% of the total soya crop. However, soybean cultivation is in crisis in Brazil and farmer need to cut costs by using the transgenic technology, resulting in a predicted boom in the use of GM seeds.

Last year the seed companies were still producing the grain but Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária, an agricultural research company, expects the next to be the first crop for which there will be a good supply of certified transgenic seeds. It is believed that until now about a quarter of the crop still will be "criola" (farm grown, without certification).

According to Embrapa Soja and the Brazilian Seeds and Sprouts Association, Rio Grande do Sul state – where the planting began illegally in 1997 with contraband from Argentina – continues to take the lead with 95-98% GM seeds. Santa Catarina and Paraná, also southern states are expected to reach 50% but in the Midwest the proportion for the moment will be only 25% GM.

Not to be outdone, transgenic cotton is also galloping along. In the first year of legal planting of, half of the area planted will use GM seeds. But a shortage of supply means that legal GM cottonseed will be used only on 10% of the cotton acreage; the rest came from illegal shipments from Argentina, Australia and the U.S.

This year producers will raise only transgenic seeds resistant to insects. The National Technical Commission of Bio-Security (CTNBio) is studying authorization of seeds resistant to herbicides. precisely what most of the illegal seeds are.

Sources:

1. Transgenics will make up 50% of crop. Gazeta Mercantil (21.9.06)

2. Neila Baldi. Transgenic cotton to occupy 50% of acreage. Gazeta Mercantil (23.11.06)

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