Brazil greenlights imports of U.S. corn

Decision benefits poultry and hog raisers; government was under pressure due to all-time high production costs this year

The federal government will greenlight imports of corn from the United States starting in July after renewed pressure by poultry and hog raisers due to the all-time high production costs this year.

The decision is seen as strategic by the animal protein industry, which gains bargaining power to try and flatten prices of corn, the main input of animal feed, or at least create a ceiling in prices in the domestic market, but few deals should materialize.

The National Technical Commission for Biosafety (CTNBio) approved last Thursday the release for human and animal consumption of the last transgenic variety grown in the U.S., DP-ØØ4114-3, which still did not have the approval to enter the Brazilian territory. There were only two on the list of genetically modified organisms without approval. The other, DAS-59122-7, was released in May. Both are from the company Corteva Agriscience.

CTNBio also updated a resolution that allowed the commercialization of grains naturally crossed in the fields or mixed in shipments in industrial companies or ships. The rule applies to corn produced in Brazil or abroad.

“What the farmer harvests is different from what CTNBio approved, because there was a natural crossing between neighboring crops,” CTNBio’s President Paulo Barroso, an agricultural engineer and geneticist, told Valor.

It would cost “billions” of reais to evaluate each crossing, he said, and that would be an unnecessary action, since only original transformation events can be cultivated.

Mr. Barroso stressed that the change was not made exclusively to meet the importation interest, which is valid for other plants and animals, and that Brazil needed to give legal security to what was already practiced in the country. The norm will be valid as of July and should be published soon in the Daily Gazette.

According to the director of biotechnology at CropLife, Othon Abrahão, the transgenic varieties released for consumption in Brazil by CTNBio were already approved for planting and consumption in the United States and ten other countries since 2013. They had not been analyzed here before because they do not meet the characteristics and needs of Brazilian producers for cultivation, and there was not the “import movement” of corn as there is now.

“They are safe products for consumption, without any risk,” he told Valor. “With these approvals, Brazil will be able to import all the events grown in the U.S.”

Valor international

Tags: импорт, corn, Brazil, US