Print“¬The benefit of GM crops, according to the non-profit biotech advocacy group, is their contribution to food security, especially in the developing world where growing populations and a rising middle class are putting increased demand on food supplies. ”
The global adoption of biotech crops continued its upward trajectory in 2011, as an additional 12 million hectares (29.7 million acres) were planted worldwide with genetically modified seeds, an 8 percent increase over 2010, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications.The benefit of GM crops, according to the non-profit biotech advocacy group, is their contribution to food security, especially in the developing world where growing populations and a rising middle class are putting increased demand on food supplies. The research firm PG Economics found that between 1996 and 2010, increased crop production from the adoption of GM crops has led to reducing carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to taking nine million cars off the road; saved almost 1 billion pounds of pesticides from being used; and added $78 billion to the pockets of 15 million small farmers, who are some of the poorest people in the world.
GM crops were planted on 160 million hectares (395.4 million acres) during 2011 by 16.7 million farmers in 29 countries, of which 90 percent are small, resource-poor farmers in developing countries. These are farmers whose plots average half a hectare (1.2 acres). While the United States continues to lead the world with 69 million hectares (170.5 mililon acres) planted, adoption rates grew much faster in developing countries, with Brazil, Argentina, China, India, and South Africa leading the rate of adoption. In fact, for the first time developing countries’ land planted with biotech crops was close to half of the total planted.
Corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola make up the bulk of the GM crops planted. They have been modified through genetic engineering to resist insects and/or tolerate herbicides, reducing the need to use large amounts of insect or weed killers. The list of GM crops is growing, however, to include rice, and vegetables and fruits such as sugar beets and papaya. For example, China has developed two varieties of insect-resistant rice and a high-phytase corn designed to reduce methane production in animals that consume it. They have passed bio-safety standards and are awaiting marketing approval. For now the country ranks sixth in biotech crop acreage, with 7 million small resource-poor farmers growing insect-resistant cotton on a record 3.9 million hectares.
Brazil ranks second behind the United States in its adoption of GM crops, with more than 30 million hectares (74.1 million acres) planted with soybeans, corn, and cotton. The country has created a fast-track approval system that has allowed it to approve eight GM products in 2010 and an additional 6 GM products in the first nine months of 2011. Brazil approved the first soybean with both insect resistance and herbicide tolerance for commercialization in 2012. The country reached a milestone in 2011 with the marketing approval of a virus-resistant bean, developed in-house by Embrapa, a public agricultural research institution.
Despite the negative sentiment about genetically modified foods and crops, especially in Europe and Japan, people have been growing and consuming them for the past 15 years. As countries look for ways to feed their populations, many political leaders around the world are viewing the technology as a key part of the solution to critical social issues of food security and sustainability. At the same time, the big agbiotechs that have led in the development of GM technology are loosening the purse strings in order to allow poor farmers to increase their yields with less fertilizer, often through public/private partnerships.
Perhaps the most encouraging story is that after many years, golden rice is close to being approved for cultivation the Philippines. Golden rice is genetically modified to contain enhanced levels of beta carotene. When first developed by plant biologists Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer in 1999 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, it held hope as an answer to vitamin A deficiency, which can damage the retina and cornea of the eye and lead to blindness. It affects up to half a million children each year in developing regions of the world that often subsist on rice, killing about half of them, according to World Health Organization estimates.
Golden rice met with great resistance by anti-GM groups and eventually Syngenta, which held the research and license rights, donated those rights to the Rice Humanitarian Board. In the Philippines, the International Rice Research Institute, a non-profit group, continued its development and conducted field trials in 2010 and 2011. The golden rice trait has been inbred into several varieties with seeds that can be saved and replanted. The plan is to sell the rice at the same price as conventional varieties. Applications for regulatory approval are planned to be submitted in the Philippines in 2013 and in Bangladesh in 2015 and the hope is that it will be released for marketing in the Philippines by 2014.
February 10, 2012
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-developing_countries_lead_adoption_rate_of_biotech_crops.html
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