Five GM corn to be released in Paraguay

Paraguay is giving authorization to place five transgenic corn events on the market next week, raising the bet of Franco Administration, the new liberal President, on biotechnology in spite of harsh criticism from social organizations.

In August, Franco released multinational Monsanto's Bollgard II cotton, a decision that sparked debate on the use of biotechnology in the country, whose economy is hugely dependent on agriculture. Now the National Biosecurity Commission (Comisión Nacional de Bioseguridad, COMBIO) would give the green light for the release of transgenic corn varieties VT Triple Pro, NK603, MON810, owned by Monsanto, BT11 patented by Syngenta and TC1507, owned by Dow AgroSciences, a Dow Chemical business unit.

"There is high certainty that the release of the five corn events will be cleared next week,” said to Reuters Santiago Bertoni, representative of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock at COMBIO, the entity that assesses the risks associated with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

The release will help increase the crop yield and could extend the production area to a million hectares up from 876,000 during the 2012 agricultural cycle, according to data provided to Reuters by a source from the Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (Instituto de Biotecnología Agrícola, INBIO).