Brazil has approved the commercial use of a GM sugarcane, setting a milestone for the country's highly competitive sugar industry as this is the first time such permission has been granted anywhere in the world. Developer CTC said it would take at least three years for the first GM cane sugar to reach export markets because of the pace of propagation of new cane varieties. Brazil grows about 10 million hectares of sugarcane and CTC estimates that the new GM cane will take up to 15 percent of this area over the next 10 years. The new cane variety contains the Bt gene widely used in other GM crops to confer resistance to the cane borer pest Diatraea saccharalis, estimated to cause more than $1.5 billion of annual losses to Brazil’s sugarcane producers.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-sugar-gmo-idUSKBN18Z2Q6