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13/03/2006
Paraná: resistance to the transgenic
As a philosophy and as a group of actions of its government, Paraná practices the sustainability and the responsible development, turned itself to the human and environmental life quality. As the genetically modified organisms represent new elements to the nature, whose ecology, evolution, interaction with other organisms, including mankind, and interactions in the ecosystems, are unknown, since 2003 Paraná adopts the principle of precaution.
With the dissemination of transgenic soybean production by all the producing areas in Argentina and Paraguay and the entrance of these products in Brazil through seeds smuggled by Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná has been adopting a rigid policy of inspection and accompaniment of the planting of genetically modified organisms, besides the prohibition of them by the Harbor of Paranaguá. Up to now, it has been producing good results such as the maintenance of its agriculture with very low rate of genetic pollution.
The inspection action performed by the Secretary of Agriculture takes place in 28 fixed stations on the borderline of Santa Catarina, São Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul, besides verifying the establishments which commercialize seeds and the denunciations for illegal plantation involving more than 200 professionals among agronomists and technicians. Defis, with the support of Claspar, makes the control of all fixed stations which work 24 hours a day in the hedges and borderlines. And, in order to go into the State, all the cargoes of soybean seeds are obligated to present negative certificate of the transgenic analyses.
Chart
Until the year 2001, the exams performed in the range of the Secretary of Agriculture didn’t detect any positive result for transgenic products in 115 thousand rural real states which are dedicated to the soybean plantation.
In the harvest of 2001/2002, the area occupied by transgenic soybean was of 2000 hectares, with only 75 producers characterized.
In the harvest of 2002/2003, only 47 rural real estates had opted to plant transgenic soybean.
In the harvest of 2003/2004, only 32 producers made this option.
In the harvest of 2004/2005, only 39 producers were characterized for a planted area of 1,188 hectares, of only 1,78% of the area planted with soybean in the whole territory of Paraná.
Due to the approval of the Law of Biodiversity by the Congress in 2005, and permission for the planting of transgenic soybean in the whole country, the relation for the harvest of 2005/2006 was the one as follow:
Offer of transgenic seeds – 315 thousand sacks, sufficient for 600 hectares.
Offer of conventional seed – 4 million and 200 thousand sacks, sufficient for the planting in the whole territory (4 million and 100 thousand hectares).
Before this new scenery defined by the Federal Law, Paraná has created a Plan of Action in order to obtain more information and define parameters for the creation of areas of exclusion for transgenic soybean, making the process of certification of conventional soybean feasible. In the harvest of 2005/2006 samples were collected in 1500 soybeans farming. It has to do with guaranteeing to the agriculturists the right to plant conventional soybean and to get the economical advantages of this option.
The work of sampling which SEAB/DEFIS is executing has the aim of: 1) provide information which serves as parameters able to make it feasible the creation of zones of exclusion of genetically modified soybean.
2) Verify if the pesticides and/or herbicides based on glifosato are respecting the good agricultural practices, especially due to the Maximum Limits of the Residue – LMR (Limites Máximos de Resíduo) – allowed for the product by force of the Temporary Restraining Order, which has authorized its use in transgenic soybean. On the harvests chosen to compose this sampling, an inspector takes notes on its location with a GPS equipment. With a proper tube, he collects peaces of five leaves of distinct plants and makes the fast test still on the field. With the GPS equipment on, the inspector goes round the area and estimates its size on the equipment, sending the information to SEAB.
Prohibition of transgenic in the Harbor of Paranaguá.
The policy adopted by the Harbor of Paranaguá against transgenic products follows legal definition of the State’s Government and supports itself in the federal legislation, which demands the segregation of the genetically modified product. Claspar – Empresa Paranaense de Classificação de Produtos (Paraná’s Company for Product Classification) acts nowadays in the Harbor of Paranaguá with its new inspection unit which works 24 hours a day and has got 200 inspectors with the function of evaluating the quality of the cargoes with the capacity to exam 2,000 trucks a day. The Government has adopted a zero tolerance range for modified grains, going against the exporters expectation, who were asking for a percentage of 0,9% accepted by the European Union. The excessive degree of impurity and humidity is the main reason for the rejection of the grains. Claspar’s inspection guarantees that the soybeans boarded by the Harbor of Paranaguá is 100% clean in relation to impurity and to transgenic process.
The product transported by Paraná goes through rigorous tests in its origin and, when arriving in Paranaguá, it goes through new evaluation. The tests show any mixture and, in case it’s detected the presence of transgenic grains, the cargo is immediately refuted. The cargoes are inspected and classified one by one. In an average, eight to ten perforations are made, in different areas of the cargo in order to collect the material. Afterwards, this sample is homogenized and classified.
In 2005, the classification refuted 9,542 units of transportation (trucks and wagons) of soybeans, corn and bran. Besides having the biggest yard in Latin America – with 63 thousand meters square of area – the classification obliges all the trucks to pass by the “Station of Control of Quality for the Pool of Exportation”. Almost two thousand trucks and 400 train wagons goes by the classification at the drainage peak of the harvest. In 2005, there was the refute of 1,242 cargoes of genetically modified soybean from a total of 120 thousand inspected trucks. The cargo control is done by a system of computers which demands the presentation of passwords by the drivers at least twice before leaving to unload the cargo. The control of the wagons is performed by Claspar stations in the country, to avoid the division of units of a composition when it arrives to the Harbor.
Paraná has a highlighted position in the farming and cattle raising , specially in the soybean production. The system of seed production in the State is a model to the country and the productivity of harvests is superior to the states and the countries where the soybean Roundup Ready of Monsanto predominates. Nowadays there is a niche of market to the non-transgenic soybean and for most of the soybean producers it is a matter of surviving in the activity to take part in this market of conventional soybean, besides not loosing the control over their main input – the seed – being in the hand of big biotechnology companies.
Paraná firmly believes that the genetic pollution which can be brought by the matching of transgenic varieties with wild varieties causes the loss of biodiversity and it is irreversible, once it deals with living creatures, putting in risk the genetic equilibrium and sources of knowledge and solutions to humankind. Besides labeling, the Government of Paraná is proposing that each country creates areas (states) free of transgenic so that it’s possible to keep the biodiversity and the “creoles” seed – natural – in storage, as it already happens in the State, where there is already a sufficient quantity of soybean seeds without genetic modification.
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