Brasília, June 24, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The head of the Presidential Advisory Staff, Minister José Dirceu, said that the government will not permit the cultivation of transgenic soybeans in the country until the National Congress rules on the question. According to Dirceu, the provisional order that prohibits this cultivation will be carried out, rigorously. "Have no doubt. The government has means to enforce the law," the Minister affirmed today at the opening of the seminar, "Transgenics and Brazilian Society," in the auditorium of the Ministry of Planning.

Sponsored by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea), the seminar brings together specialists from the government, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations with the objective of expanding the debate over a topic that has been causing controversy all over the world. In Brazil, the issue has provoked cases in the courts and public confrontations between those who are in favor of and those who are opposed to transgenics.

"We are trying to construct a transparent process of public debate with serenity and without radicalism," Minister Dirceu affirmed, pointing out that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has accompanied closely all of the questions related to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

According to the Minister of Science and Technology, Roberto Amaral, the seminar that Ipea is promoting is the first in a series of debates that will involve society to define a policy to deal with GMOs. In his view, the obligation of the State is to ensure trustworthy information about the food products consumed by the population.

Amaral called for the immediate revision of current transgenic legislation, and he affirmed that the laws bequeathed by the previous Administration constitute a real anarchy. "We must review them, organize the matter with norms, and stimulate the search for scientific solutions to this question," he affirmed, adding that the government has no pre-formulated truth: "We want to know what is best for Brazilian society."

The Minister of Environment, Marina Silva, emphasized the importance of the seminar and underscored the need to do away with the "false debate" that orients the transgenics question. "The simple-minded position of I am in favor or I am against doesn't contribute to the debate." She also affirmed that, in President Lula's Administration, the question of transgenics was elevated from the ministerial to the governmental sphere. (DAS)