Dec 23, 2009
Roundup Ready Soybeans Increasing Market Share In Brazil
Author: Michael Cordonnier/Soybean & Corn Advisor, Inc.
Roundup Ready soybean varieties continue to increase their share of the Brazilian soybean market. For the 2009-10 growing season, it is estimated that 67% of the total soybean acreage will be Roundup Ready soybean varieties, which represents a 10% expansion compared to last year. Since becoming legal to plant in 2005, Brazilian soybean farmers have been readily adopting the new technology. Not everyone agrees with the new trend and farm organizations that are opposed to the use of Roundup Ready soybeans claim the percentage of roundup Ready soybeans is much lower than 67%, more in the range of 56%.
In the state of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil; approximately 95% of the soybeans are Roundup Ready. Farmers in the state started to plant Roundup Ready soybean varieties many years before they were officially declared legal in Brazil. The first Roundup Ready soybeans were brought in from Argentina and were planted illegally for many years. In 2005, the Brazilian Congress legalized the use of the technology and set up rules and regulations as too how these varieties would be tested and cultivated.
The state of Parana has been the most resistant to the introduction of Roundup Ready soybeans. Statewide, only about 45% of the soybeans grown in the state are Roundup Ready. State officials feel there is a market for conventional soybeans (non-GMO) especially with their European customers and they want to keep the option of supplying that market. Brazil's largest grain port, the Port of Paranagua, is located in the state of Parana and port officials have been working hard limit the amount of Roundup Ready soybeans allowed to move through the port as a way to preserve their niche in the market.
While Brazilian farmers like the flexibility offered by the new technology, they do not like the idea of paying royalties to Monsanto and adhering to Monsanto's rules governing the use of Roundup Ready soybeans. Seed producers in Mato Grosso claim that Monsanto requires them to plant 85% of their acreage to Roundup Ready varieties and only 15% to conventional soybean varieties. They feel this is an infringement on the use of their property. Monsanto disputes that claim.
In Rio Grande do Sul more than 350 organizations have joined together to contest in the courts Monsanto's insistence that farmers can not replant their own Roundup Ready seeds. The farmers feel that if they paid the royalty originally they should be allowed to use their own seed production as they see fit.