Brazilian enviros are up in arms over a federal move last week that will allow genetically modified (GM) soybeans to be sold in the country temporarily, through January 2004. GM crops are officially banned in Brazil, but so many farmers flout the prohibition that an estimated 12 percent of the nation’s soy crop is genetically engineered. With millions of tons of GM soybeans already in the ground and growing, soy traders argued that the government had no choice but to allow the beans to be sold this year. Greenpeaces’s Mariana Paoli accused Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of breaking an election promise to assume a precautionary approach toward GM crops. “Brazilians will be consuming a product that hasn’t received either health or environmental approval,” Paoli said.
