Argentina to authorize a new GMO stacked cotton

 

March 27th. Argentina AgroIndustry secretariat opened the public hearings before to release new GMO cotton. In this occasion, it treats about the SYN IR 102-7 trait that confers to the crop insect resistance via VIPCot technology and the stacking of this trait with other four that confers cotton resistance to glyphosate and glufosinate herbicides, and insects (lepidopters) via three action-modes.

 

The public hearings (non-binding) will be open until May 25th. Since the first GMO cotton released in 1998 (MON 1445 or insect resistance), in 2009 Argentine Government authorized the stack MON 531 x MON 1445 or glyphosate and insect resistance, in 2015 the BCS-GHØØ2-5 x ACS-GHØØ1-3 GHB614xLLCotton25 (glufosinate, glyphosate and insect resistance by Bayer), and in 2019 the HPD and glyphosate herbicide-resistant cotton (solicited by BASF).

 

“This means that biotechnology companies have confidence in the future of the cotton production in the country”, a eFarmNewsAr source told after knew the public hearing. “We are expecting the soon commercial launching of this necessary technologies”, they added.

 

But Government is having run a large effort to order the seed value chain in Argentina, fighting the illegal seed commerce. Last spring, the National Seed Institute (INASE) inspected delinter factories and detected the presence of non-authorized GMO traits.

 

“As we were able to know, during the latest inspections, INASE detected illegal Flex cotton in the North of the country. We are confident that the country is going ahead very vigorous to eradicate the illegal seed and this is a good signal to seed companies that Argentina is a trustworthy country to bring new technologies”, the source said.

 

In fact, this next campaign (2019/20) farmers will be able to access to three new cotton cultivars, developed by Agricultural Technology National Institute (INTA), that provides to farmers better yields and better health against pests and diseases.