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You are in GM Crops and Food → Introductory Guide → Worldwide Commercial Growing

Worldwide Commercial Growing

Global area of commercially cultivated GM Crops

GM Crops were first grown on a large scale in 1996 when US farmers started to grow Monsanto's Roundup Ready soya.   Each year the ISAAA produces a briefing giving details of the commercial growing of GM crops globally - these figures are used extensively by media and industry.  A table produced from these figures can be found at the bottom of this page.  Criticisms have been made about these reports because;

• Many figures for the the areas of a GM crop grown are reliant on personal communication or the source is simply not referenced.
  
• ISAAA explicitly supports the commercial growing of GM crops and statistics are used only to highlight the uptake of GM crops by farmers and countries.
• Relatively few countries grow GM crops, with over 85% of the global area being in the USA, Argentina, Brazil and Canada.
  

Environmental organisations have criticised these figures in recent years.

• Greenpeace International (18 January 2007) The Global Status of Genetically Engineered (GE) Crops - 10 years of continuing rejection
• GM Freeze and Friends of the Earth Europe (11 February 2009) Undoing the ISAAA Myths on GM Crops

Which types of GM crops are being grown around the world?

Media reports and science journals include many stories of new crops that can been produced using genetic modification.  However, the range of traits available commercially remains relatively small and dominated by herbicide tolerance and insect resistance traits.

Herbicide tolerant GM maize, soya, sugar beet and cotton.

Herbicide tolerance has been one of the most successful traits developed for GM crops.  These crops have been made to be tolerant to either glufosinate ammonium or glyphosate. These are broad spectrum herbicides which kill all green plants except those protected as a result of the genetic modification. They have been attractive to a number of farmers because they simplify the spraying regimes ie Farmers only have to spray with one type of herbicide. These crops have been attractive to the biotechnology companies as they have been able

• to sell both the herbicide and the GM seeds as a package

• to place the same gene sequences into each of these major crop types

• to gain intellectual property rights over the modified seeds and thus charge an annual technology fee.

Further reading

Charles Benbrook (November 2009) Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use: The First Thirteen Years. The Organic Center

Special Issue: Glyphosate-Resistant Weeds and Crops (2008) Pest Management Science Volume 64 Issue 4

In the UK the Farm Scale Evaluations ran from 1999-2004, where GM sugar beet, maize and oilseed rape (winter and spring) were grown along side conventional crops to monitor their ecological effects BBC News : GM study shows potential 'harm' 21 March 2005

Bt insect resistant Cotton and maize.

These crops (primarily cotton and maize), have been genetically modified so they are toxic to certain insects. They are often called Bt crops because the introduced genes were originally identified in a bacterial species call Bacillus thuringiensis.  These bacteria produce a group of toxins called Cry toxins. There has been much controversy about the safety assessment of crops genetically modified in this way.

Virus Resistant Papaya

Papaya genetically modified to be resistant to the Papaya Ringspot Virus (PRSV) were developed by the University of Hawaii and are primarily planted there. Some reports claim that these crops have saved the Hawaiian Papaya industry from devastation whilst others claim valuable export markets have been lost and that the disease could have been controlled in other ways.

For more information see: Melanie Bondera & Mark Query (2006) Hawaiian papaya - GMO contaminated Hawaii SEED  

Table 1: Area of Commercial GM Crops by Country

Key:

• Bt = insect resistant using a toxin from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis
  
• Ht = tolerant to at least one of the following herbicides. Glyphosate (Roundup) or Glufosinate ammonium (Liberty).
  
• Ht-Bt = crops with stacked traits of both Bt insect resistance and herbicide tolerance.
  
• VR = virus resistant.

Country	Cultivation area (Hectares)	Crops and traits
USA	62.5 million	Bt Maize, HTmaize & Bt-HT maize HT Soya Bt Cotton, Ht Cotton & Bt-Ht Cotton Bt Canola VR Papaya
Argentina	21 million	Ht Soybean Bt Maize, Ht Maize & Bt-Ht Maize Bt Cotton & Ht Cotton
Brazil	15.8 million	Ht Soya Bt Cotton Bt Maize
Canada	7.6 million	Ht Canola Ht Soybeans Ht Maize, Bt Maize & Ht-Bt Maize Ht Sugar beet.
India	7.6 million	Bt Cotton
China	3.8 million	Bt Cotton VR Papaya
Paraguay	2.7 million	HT Soybean
South Africa	1.8 million	HT Cotton, Bt Cotton & Ht-Bt Cotton Ht Maize, Bt Maize & Ht-Bt maize Ht Soybean
Uruguay	0.75 million	Ht Soybean Bt maize
Bolivia	0.6 million	Ht Soybean
Philippines	0.4 million	Bt Maize, Ht Maize & Bt-Ht Maize
Australia	0.2 million	Bt Cotton, Bt-Ht Cotton Ht Canola & Hybrid system-Ht Canola Altered colour carnation
Mexico	95,000	Bt Cotton Ht Soybean
Spain	79,000	Bt Maize
Columbia	28,000	Bt Cotton, Ht Cotton & Bt-Ht Cotton
Honduras	9,000	Ht Maize & Bt-Ht Maize
Burkina Faso	9,000	Bt Cotton
Czech Republic	8,380	Bt maize
Romania	7,146	Bt Maize
Portugal	4.851	Bt Maize
Germany	3,173	Bt Maize
Poland	3,000	Bt Maize
Slovakia	1,900	Bt Maize
Egypt	700	Bt Maize

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