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Syngenta defends Viptera decisions

An official of Syngenta is defending the company’s 2010 decision to release the MIR 162 corn trait, known as Agrisure Viptera, even though it had not received import approval from China.

Chuck Lee, head of Syngenta’s corn sector, points out that China imported corn containing the Viptera trait for two years before it began rejecting the grain late last year.

“It really wasn’t until November of 2013, when China grew a record crop, did they begin to reject Viptera grain,” Lee tells Brownfield, “and so we believe this is really an issue around trade, and a price and supply issue inside of China.  It’s not about Viptera.  It’s not about the Viptera product whatsoever.”

And Lee points out that China was not—and still is not—considered a “key importer” of U.S. corn.

“It you look at the last five years, they’ve averaged—even including last year and add the last five years together—they’ve averaged less than one percent of the U.S. whole grain corn crop that they’ve imported,” he says. “We’re not trying to say that they’re an unimportant country, because any market’s an important market—but in the big picture, they actually have imported very little U.S. corn.”

Lee says it’s also a question of whether any country should be able to dictate when new technologies are released.  He says Syngenta strongly upholds the right of growers to have access to approved new technologies.

“Our belief is, and I think a lot farmers tell us this, is that technology is what’s fueled and made American farmers as competitive and productive as they are today—and they want to make sure that they have the right to plant that,” Lee says. “If the trait is approved in the U.S. and in our key export markets, a lot of growers and ourselves feel that they should have the right to do so.”

As for the lawsuits filed against Syngenta by exporter and farmers, Lee says the company continues to believe that they are “without merit”.

AUDIO: Chuck Lee