The National Biosafety Commission (CTNBio) will end a three-day meeting when it will issue its views on the public health impact of animal and human consumption of any of the 13 varieties of GM corn currently on the market.

Brazil outlaws genetically altered crops and is the hemisphere's last major grains competitor to the United States to hold out as an anti-GM bastion - while neighbouring Argentina is already the world's second largest GM producer, particularly of corn and soybeans.

The commission is widely expected to approve imports of GM corn, one of the few agricultural commodities where Brazil's production is insufficient to meet local demand.

CTNBio cautiously recommends a National policy favouring transgenics and authorises some limited testing of GM crops.

"We will make a detailed analysis of each of the varieties of corn," said CTNBio's president Leila Macedo Oda. "We haven'T received notification from any country that there have been problems with the consumption of genetically-modified corn."

"This technology (GM) is irreversible, but there has to be an effective control so that society can live with it without running risks," she told reporters earlier this month.

Despite growing more than 30 million tonnes of its own corn a year, Brazil still imports to meet internal demand. This year, due to a drought over the southern farmlands, demand is expected to exceed supply by at least two million tonnes.

But in recent weeks government authorities, alerted by international environmental group Greenpeace, have turned back at least two cargoes of Argentine corn from Brazilian ports as the grains were found to be genetically modified.

Greenpeace said Thursday its activists would dress as cooks and demonstrate through the afternoon outside the CTNBio meeting to demand "transparency" in the commission's decision.Although the views of CTNBio will be paramount for Brazil to authorise entry of any GM corn, the final decision will rest with the Agriculture Ministry - which specifically asked the commission to look at imports from the U.S. And Argentina.

If Brazil does eventually approve GM corn, the next obvious policy step would be to authorise wide-scale planting and, presumably, exports of soybeans. Brazil is the world's second largest soybean producer after the United States.

But analysts took a more sceptical line, stressing that whatever this week's technical decision of the commission turns out to be, the Agriculture Ministry - where the buck stops - still appears to be rigid in its anti-GM policy.

"It's politically sensitive but corn and soy are related cases," said Flavio Franca, Chief soybean analyst at leading grains consultancy Safras E Mercado. "The government's policy applies to all transgenic products in general."

"If they allow (GM) corn imports, consequently soybeans are included in that process. But it's not them (CTNBio) in charge because it'll then go to the Agriculture Ministry," he said.

Franca pointed to a court decision late Wednesday which upheld a consumer-led injunction slapped on U.S. Biotechnology and agribusiness giant Monsanto Co. in 1999, which bans sales of its GM Roundup Ready soybeans in Brazil.

This ruling came despite a verdict from CTNBio in 1998 that the herbicide-resistant Roundup Ready soybeans were clear of any health risks for human or animal consumption.

"Yesterday the court again upheld the prohibition on the sale of Monsanto's soybean products so I think the issue is heading towards a clear conclusion, that in Brazil it is going to be forbidden to grow or to import (GM crops)," Franca said.

In 1996, the government set up CTNBio, a 36-member body linked to the Ministry of Science and Technology, as a body to advise on GM crops and foods. Part of its brief is to supervise field testing of GM crops and research of other GM species.