Global Networks: São Paulo

#GNN - Genetically modified corn seeds are no longer protecting Brazilian farmers from voracious tropical bugs, increasing costs as producers turn to pesticides, a farm group said on Monday.

Producers want four major manufacturers of so-called BT corn seeds to reimburse them for the cost of spraying up to three coats of pesticides this year, said Ricardo Tomczyk, president of Aprosoja farm lobby in Mato Grosso state.

"The caterpillars should die if they eat the corn, but since they didn't die this year producers had to spend on average 120 reais ($54) per hectare ... at a time that corn prices are terrible," he said.

Large-scale farming in the bug-ridden tropics has always been a challenge, and now Brazil's government is concerned that planting the same crops repeatedly with the same seed technologies has left the agricultural superpower vulnerable to pest outbreaks and dependent on toxic chemicals.

Experts in the United States have also warned about corn production prospects because of a growing bug resistance to genetically modified corn. Researchers in Iowa found significant damage from rootworms in corn fields last year.

In Brazil, the main corn culprit is Spodoptera frugiperda, also known as the corn leafworm or southern grassworm.

Seed companies say they warned Brazilian farmers to plant part of their corn fields with conventional seeds to prevent bugs from mutating and developing resistance to GMO seeds.

Dow Agrosciences, a division of Dow Chemical Co, has programs in Brazil to help corn farmers develop "an integrated pest management system that includes, among other things, the cultivation of refuge areas," it said in an email.

Another company, DuPont, said it had not received any formal notification from Aprosoja. The company's Pioneer brand has been working with producers to extend the durability of its seed technology and improve efficiency since Spodoptera worms were found to have developed resistance to the Cry1F protein, it said in a statement.

Monsanto Co also said in a statement that it has not been formally notified by the group. The other company, Syngenta AG, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tomczyk, who also spoke for Brazilian farmers during a dispute over seed royalty payments to Monsanto that ended last year, said Aprosoja encouraged the planting of refuge areas. But he said the seed companies have not given clear instructions.

"There are barely any non-GMO seeds available ... it is very uncomfortable that the companies are blaming the farmers," he said. Aprosoja hopes to reach a negotiated agreement with the seed companies, but if all else fails farmers may sue to get reparations for pesticide costs, he added.

Brazil is harvesting its second of two annual corn crops and expects to produce 78 million tonnes this crop year, slightly less than last season's record. Domestic prices recently fell to their lowest in four years because of abundant supplies.

($1 = 2.223 reais)

(GNN,Reuters,AIP)(Reporting by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Steve Orlofsky)

(GNN) - A Brazilian rest home for the elderly believes it may be home to the world's oldest person, a former agricultural laborer born in a runaway slave community, who is identified in documents stating he was born 126 years ago at a time when Brazil still had an emperor.

A birth certificate and identity documents issued by a judge in 2001 show that Jose Aguinelo dos Santos, a resident of the Vila Vicentina shelter for the elderly in Bauru, Brazil, was born on July 7, 1888, less than two months after the end of slavery in the country, said Cesar Siqueira, the rest home's vice president.

While Dos Santos has none of the original documents proving his age, interest in his life has increased since the death on June 8 of Alexander Imich in New York, Siqueira said.

Imich lived to age 111, according to CNN, which reported that he was certified as the world's oldest man in April by the Gerontology Research Group of Torrance, California.

Siqueira said Dos Santos' documents were granted by a judge based on interviews with the presumed centenarian.

"We are only saying this is his presumed age," said Siqueira, who has worked at the rest home for 31 years. "But he is lucid, can speak well and does just about everything by himself every day except bathe himself."

Dos Santos has lived at Vila Vicentina, a rest home that takes care of the poor and indigent, since 1973. He was born to a former slave in a quilombo, or Afro-Brazilian community founded by runaway slaves, and moved to Sao Paulo state where he worked as a laborer on farms and coffee plantations, Siqueira said.

Dos Santos was not immediately available for comment.

As of June 25, the oldest living man was Sakari Momoi of Japan at 111 years and 140 days, while the oldest living woman was Misao Okawa, also of Japan, at 116 years and 112 days, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

No one but the judge who interviewed Dos Santos in 2001 has certified his age, Siqueira said. Vila Vicentina is trying to get more records from archives in the northeastern state of Ceará and the rest home's managers have spoken with doctors and others about the possibility of using methods such as carbon dating to narrow down the date of birth, he added.

Until recently, many Brazilians born in remote rural areas had no formal documents.

"The only thing I won't allow is something that will hurt Jose Aguinelo," Siqueira said. "We are, though, sure he is very old, and so is he."

Photos of Dos Santos and his documents were published on Sunday on Brazil's G1 news website after journalists visited the rest home in Bauru, about 275 kilometers (170 miles) northwest of Sao Paulo city.

If his birth date can be confirmed, it will show that Dos Santos was born a little more than a year before Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II was deposed and the modern Brazilian Republic proclaimed. At that time, Queen Victoria ruled the British Empire and Grover Cleveland was president of the United States.

(GNN - Reuters - AIP)(Reporting by Jeb Blount; Editing by Jan Paschal)