A large number of Brazilian farmers are locked in a legal battle with agribusiness giant Monsanto, it has emerged. Five million farmers in Brazil, the world’s second largest soy producer, are refusing to pay royalties on the company’s genetically modified soy beans.

Having been grown in the country for 14 years, GM soy now accounts for 85 per cent of Brazilian soy. The Brazilian government, which is GM-friendly, has funded research into genetically engineering other staple crops, though the government’s GM crops are open source.  

However, the ‘Roundup Ready’ plants, modified to render them immune to glyphosate herbicide, which account for the large majority of Brazilian soy bean crops, are subject to patent laws which Monsanto has gained infamy for protecting fiercely. Furthermore, GM is not without its opponents in Brazil; the country’s influential peasant farmers movement rejects the seeds, environmentalists argue their cultivation is affecting the country’s biodiversity and experts have warned the crops are putting workers out of jobs.  

Following the lifting of an official ban on the crops in the early noughties, GM soy is now grown on 25 million hectares. The soy is used principally for animal feed, biofuel and cooking oil. Soy exports account for over a quarter of Brazil’s farm exports.

In 2003, Monsanto asked that farmers pay a two per cent royalty fee. For four years, Brazilian farmers have flouted the agchem giant’s demands for royalties on their crops; five million producers in Brazil have joined together to file a lawsuit against the company, accusing it of unduly charging royalties, which means growers are forced to pay twice.

A lawyer representing the farmers told the AFP, "Monsanto gets paid when it sell the seeds. The law gives producers the right to multiply the seeds they buy and nowhere in the world is there a requirement to pay (again). Producers are in effect paying a private tax on production."

In April, a judge in the Southern state of Rio Grande do Sul ruled in favour of the farmers, though Monsanto has appealed the ruling; the appeal process may last until 2014, but if the farmers prevail Monsanto will be expected to pay around $2 billion in returned royalties accrued since 2004.

This is not the first time progressive social policies have caused Brazilians to fall foul of transnational corporations; in 2001, the country angered major pharmaceutical companies by opting to manufacture generic AIDS drugs licensed to transnational Pfizer to provide universal access to treatment for Brazilian people, another move which market fundamentalists claimed violated ‘intellectual property’ rights.   

Although Brazil’s soybeans are principally exported to China, a significant proportion of soybean imports to the UK come from the country.

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