RIO DE JANEIRO--Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso in mid-July signed a transgenic labeling decree (Decree No. 3,871) meant to pave the way for commercialization of genetically modified (GM) crops and packaged foodstuffs. However, environmental and consumer advocacy groups, who call the measures wholly inadequate, plan to try to legally block the decree if they cannot get Cardoso to revoke it.

Although the courts have blocked the commercialization of transgenic crops in Brazil, the issue still has not been settled.

In August 2000, for instance, a federal appeals court upheld a 1998 ruling blocking the sale of Monsanto's genetically modified Roundup Ready(TM) soy seeds pending environmental-impact rules and development of health and safety regulations, including the labeling of transgenic foodstuffs.

Both the government and Monsanto argue that genetically altered seed varieties will safely improve crop yields and reduce farmers' reliance on pesticides and herbicides.

However, since Monsanto lost the 2000 appeal, the government has been preparing environmental-impact norms and drafting health and safety regulations--such as the transgenic labeling decree--that would allow for the commercialization of GM crops and packaged foodstuffs.

A technical team of the National Environmental Council (Conama) is drawing up norms for environmental impact statements needed to get a Conama license to commercialize GM products, an Agriculture Ministry source told BNA July 24.

The team is composed of representatives from all the federal government ministries and state governments, as well as nongovernmental organizations and private-sector representatives.

4 Percent Solution

The National Technical Commission for Bio-Security (CTNBio), the government agency overseeing the transgenics issue, has not said whether it will make them product-specific, Paulo Borges, the Agriculture Ministry's representative on the CTNBio, told BNA July 24. CTNBio has already set down general bio-security norms for cultivating transgenic crops. But Borges said that before transgenic products can be sold, the CTNBio will have to analyze and approve them. In fact, the government wants environmental and biosafety norms in place soon so that it can allow the commercial use of five different types of GM soybean seeds in Brazil, Agriculture Minister Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes told the O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper July 21.

Agriculture Ministry press spokesman Miguel Bueno July 23 confirmed the minister's comments.

The labeling decree is the government's most recent step in allowing for the commercialization of GM products. The decree says that, as of January 2002, GM food product ingredients--each of which accounts for over 4 percent of the weight of a foodstuff--must be clearly labeled as such in Portuguese.

Because the decree allows for this 4 percent limit to apply to each GM ingredient, if a foodstuff has five GM ingredients, each of which accounts for up to--but not more than--4 percent of the foodstuff, that foodstuff can be 20 percent composed of GM ingredients and still not require GM labeling, Sezifredo Paz, technical consultant for the Brazilian Institute of Consumer Defense (IDEC), a consumer advocacy group, told BNA July 23.

Transgenic End Run?

It is this provision in the decree that particularly alarms consumer advocacy groups like IDEC, which sought and was granted the injunction that blocked the sale of Roundup Ready. Paz told BNA that in Europe, products with transgenic ingredients that exceed 1 percent (the share of each GM-ingredient allowed in GM corn and soy, the only two transgenic products allowed to be sold in Europe) must be labeled. He compared that to the much higher 4 percent limit in the Brazilian transgenic labeling decree.

Paz also outlined some of the labeling decree's other "holes," including provisions that:

only require GM labeling on packaged or bottled foods (not produce) and do not require GM products such as soy oil and chocolate containing soy to be GM labeled because labeling requirements are based on a detectable presence of DNA, something that has been processed out of soy oil and chocolate containing soy.

IDEC also argued that the GM labeling decree should include some form of fine or other punishment for violating the labeling standards, something it currently does not do.

Possible Court Action

"This labeling decree, besides allowing foodstuffs to contain a high percentage of each GM ingredient, allows some GM foodstuffs like soy oil, or ingredients in GM foodstuffs, not to have to carry a GM label," Paz said. "If we can't convince President Cardoso to sign a more consumer-protective labeling decree, IDEC will try to get it overturned in the courts."

The one-page decree, which includes general guidelines but lacks detail, calls for an interministerial commission to be set up within 60 days to review it and, if necessary, draft complementary legislation with more specific rules and regulations to implement the labeling decree.

The commission most likely will be composed of officials from the ministries that helped draw up the decree--the ministries of Agriculture, Environment, Health, and Justice.

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