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The government should inspect the illegal planting of transgenic corn in Rio Grande do Sul state during the course of all the 2005/06 crop, trying to block piracy, coming primarily from Argentina.

The decision was made after the discovery of a lott of genetically modified grain in the state. Food processing companies, like Sadia, already have been checking and testing their corn purchases for at least the past four years.

Until now, the only genetically modified crop with legal permission to be planted in Brazil is soybeans. Other crops are still under analysis, like corn and cotton. The authorization is granted by the National Technical Committee on Biossecurity (CTNBio), the organ that regulates the theme.

"We are going to fiscalize the 2005/06 crop from planting to harvest," said Mauro Marques Ruggiro, chief of agricultural surveillance services within the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa) in Rio Grande do Sul state. "We are making an effort so that the illegal planting of transgenic corn does not reach the same proportions as pirate soybeans," he said.

In this case, the agronomic characteristics of corn favor the government, because the corn grain cannot be reutilized for seed. The grower must buy new seed for each and every crop and, in the case of illegal planting, this means that the farmer imports via the black market regularly. "Due to these characteristics, the planting still is very limited. I do not believe that the area planted with surpass 5% of the planting in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina states, and I doubt that it will be more expressive in other regions," said Anderson Galvao, counselor of the Biotechnology Information Council (CIB).

Together, Gauchos and Catarinenses will plant 2.24 million hectares. The illegal corn planting is concentrated in the varieties Bt (resistant to lizards), Syngenta, and Roundup (resistant to herbicides), of Monsanto. Syngenta did not say whether it plans to take some measure. Meanwhile, Monsanto Argentina "manifests its total repudiation of the illegal commerce of seeds, an activity that generates grave losses for the seed industry," and it said that it will check the charge that the contrabanded seeds have the logotype of one of its brands on the sack.

The food industry already has been working to prevent illegal planting and realizing tests on cargoes of its own volition. At Sadia, the tests are a demand of importers of chickens and swine, and its obligatory nature is even included in contracts.