Source: Grain SA

The Pretoria high court has ordered Swiss biotechnology firm Syngenta not to distribute genetically engineered maize seed until a department of agriculture appeal board has considered Biowatch South Africa's contention that Syngenta should not have been permitted to grow the maize in the first place.

According to Biowatch SA, Justice Daniels of the Transvaal Provincial Division of the High Court made the order on Friday evening after Syngenta brought an urgent application to stop the appeal board hearing from proceeding this weekend.

The judge ordered that the date of the appeal board hearing be set back to September 14 and 15, but warned Syngenta against distributing the contentious seed until the appeal board had considered the matter.

Most commercial maize farmers in South Africa plant in spring, which is around the corner.

Syngenta said yesterday it would not distribute the modified maize until after the date set for the appeal board hearing.

Biowatch SA, an environmental watchdog organisation, has objected on procedural and substantive grounds to the manner in which Syngenta was granted a permit to grow genetically engineered maize for human and animal consumption.

Elfrieda Pschorn-Strauss, a senior researcher at the organisation, said that in effect the permit granted to Syngenta was illegal, as the company did not follow the right procedure in acquiring it.


"For one, they did not do a proper environmental impact assessment."

One season's crop of Syngenta genetically modified maize has already been harvested in South Africa.

Pschorn-Strauss said it was estimated that 20 percent of South Africa's maize and soya came from genetically modified seed.

South Africa is one of the few countries in the world that produces genetically modified white maize for human consumption, and, unlike many of its neighbours, the government has given broad backing to this technology.

Campaigners such as Biowatch SA say the labelling of genetically engineered produce is only voluntary and so people often do not know what they are eating.

Bully Bothma, the chairman of Grain SA, said that seed was entering the country that had not gone through all the procedures for approval.

Countries, such as the US, did not have an identity preservation system to track where seed had originated and that allowed it to dump its product in South Africa, posing a threat to the local market.

Bothma said South Africa had a surplus of 2 million tons of maize.

By Dirk De Vynck