A Brazilian court this week overturned an injunction banning products containing the herbicide glyphosate, knocking down a previous ruling that had been set to disrupt the soy planting season set to begin this month.
Brazil’s Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi tweeted on Friday that he had incorrectly stated a day earlier that a court had lifted an injunction on products containing the widely used herbicide glyphosate and that a ruling was still pending.
A Brazilian court has lifted an injunction that had suspended registration in the country of products containing the agrochemical glyphosate, Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi said on Thursday on his official Twitter account.
A potential ban on the popular herbicide glyphosate in Brazil over concerns it may cause cancer in humans would be a “disaster” for the country’s agricultural industry, Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi said on Thursday.
Pharmaceutical group Bayer has dismissed claims that an ingredient used in weed killers is carcinogenic. The German company, which owns agriculture giant Monsanto, says herbicides containing glyphosate are safe.
Argentina authorized the use of genetically modified soybean seeds resistant to herbicides other than glyphosate, as the European Union (EU) debates whether to extend the license of weed-killers containing the ingredient.
Monsanto stepped up its defense of a widely used weed killer by filing a lawsuit in California seeking to prevent glyphosate, the main ingredient in its Roundup herbicide, from being added to the state’s list of known carcinogens.
In what is described as a major blow to genetic modification of crops, a variety of wheat developed in the UK to repel pests has failed in field trials. The variety engineered to produce an odor that repels aphids, failed in the field test after it was successfully tested in the lab, proving a wide gap between lab and commercial application of the process.