Brazil is the world’s second largest GE producer

The following is an edited excerpt.

Brazil is the second largest producer of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the world, behind only the United States. Brazil has about 37 million hectares (92 million acres) of land planted with GM crops, according to agribusiness consultancy agency Céleres (pdf)

That is more than half of the 67.7 million hectares (167.3 million acres) used for agriculture in Brazil overall, according to the 2013 estimates of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.

The use of transgenic products in Brazil began in the early 1990s, when farmers from the south began to cultivate genetically modified soybeans imported from Argentina. The government began regulating the product commercially in 1995.

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The sale of GMOs was banned in 1998 due to a lawsuit by the Brazilian Institute for Consumer Defense. But in 2003, the government again permitted the marketing of GM products with regulations. In the same year, the Brazilian government issued the Labeling Decree (4680/2003), which requires producers and sellers to identify on food packaging products that contain more than 1 percent GM raw materials.

Read the full story here:GMOs, A Global Debate: Brazil, Second Largest GMO Producer in World