ABSTRACT
This chapter tells the story of how a controversy over genetically modified organism (GMOs) was created in Brazil. Although the context of neoliberal adjustments in Brazil was favourable to the adoption of GM crops, and despite the efforts from a coalition of actors promoting the new technology, social mobilization against GM crops found a fertile ground among civil society in the 1990s due to the existence of organized movements among family farmers, peasants and agroecology activists. The project of converting Brazilian agriculture to an export-oriented corporate food regime would have to coexist with an alternative model based on very different ideological underpinnings. Peasants fighting for access to land as well as rural workers demanding labour rights have had support from the Catholic Church, in particular after the creation of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) in 1975. The Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC) and the Brazilian Society of Genetics (SBG) started to organize the first debates on biotechnology.
