Brazil Passes Law Allowing Crops With Modified Genes

In a significant victory for large biotechnology companies like Monsanto, Brazil's lower house of Congress has overwhelmingly approved legislation paving the way for the legalization of genetically modified crops.
After months of delays and heated debate, legislators passed a biotechnology law late Wednesday night by a vote of 352 to 60. The bill had pitted farmers and scientists against environmental and religious groups. Besides lifting a longstanding ban on the sale and planting of gene-altered seeds, the legislation also clears the way for research involving human embryonic stem cells that have been frozen for at least three years.
...Until now, Brazil was one of the last of the world's major agricultural producers not to have granted blanket permanent approval to the planting of genetically modified crops. Even so, farmers have been flouting the ban for years, sowing modified soybean seeds that have been smuggled across the border from neighboring Argentina.