Committee on Agriculture, Animal Industry, Supply and Rural Development, last Wednesday, passed a Bill 6899/10 of Deputy Beto Faro (PT-PA), which fixes rules for commercial retaliation cases applied by Brazil against other countries, when authorized by World Trade Organization (WTO).

According to the proposal, Brazil should preferably suspend its patent protection on seeds or vegetal varieties when opting for suspending intellectual property rights at penalties involving agricultural and livestock products. For example, if Brazilian cotton producers are harmed by unfair practices from other countries, Brazil is able to suspend right protection of other agricultural and livestock products, like soybean produced by multinational companies.

The Rapporteur of the Proposal, Deputy Silas Brasileiro (PMDB-MG) has recommended the measure approval, but he made an Amendment to allow a compensation fund creation sponsored by the offender countries. The proposal prohibited any kind of created fund which could be understood as another subsidy way, exactly what Brazil has been trying to combat with WTO.

Recently, WTO has allowed Brazil to impose sanctions against the United States, because of their cotton subsidies. As part of the solution, the USA has been discussing a financing of a research fund for Brazil’s cotton production. As part of the solution, the USA has been discussing a financing of a research fund for Brazil’s cotton production. There will be 147 millions of dollars (almost R$ 270 millions) destined to research development and other actions that provide better competitiveness to cotton feed-production chain.

The Rapporteur argues that this measure, amid the proposals by the Brazilian government, will be the one that more benefits may generate for the national cotton-grower. “Indeed, the fund will be the only restorative measure from the high losses caused to Brazilian agriculturists by the heavy subsidies given to US cotton producers", he said.

Report - Marcello Larcher
Edition - Pierre Triboli
Translation - Grupo Solucion-SP Language/Márcia Regina Monteiro Ferreira