GM Crop Production GMOs Gain Ground for the Tenth Consecutive Year

In 2005, farmers planted genetically modified crops on 90 million hectares, an increase of 9 million hectares (11 percent) from the previous year. In January 2006, these and other statistics on GMO production were released by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agro-Biotech Applications (ISAAA). Ten years after transgenic plants were first released for agricultural production, 8.5 million farmers from 21 countries grow genetically modified crops. Ninety percent of these farmers are in developing countries like China, India, and the Philippines.

Global cultivation of GM crops from 1996 to 2005

The countries that grew more than one million hectares of genetically modified crops include the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Paraguay, and India. Brazil increased its plantings particularly dramatically, from 5 million hectares in 2004 to 9.4 million hectares in 2005. With the adoption of Bt cotton, India’s GM crop production almost tripled from 500,000 hectares in 2004 to 1.3 million hectares in 2005.

Global cultivation of GMO soybean, maize, cotton, and canola (1996-2005)

The most commonly grown genetically modified crop remains GM soybean, covering 54.4 million hectares in 2005, which makes up 60 percent of worldwide soybean production. The next most widespread genetically modified crop is GM maize, which covered 21.2 million hectares (24% of worldwide maize production). Next is GM cotton, with 9.8 million hectares (11%), and rapeseed with 4.6 million hectares (5%).

New on the list this year is transgenic rice. Iran grew 4,000 hectares of GM rice to produce seed for next year’s crop. It is suspected that China is nearly ready to begin commercially growing transgenic rice. Estimates of when the Chinese government will approve GM rice for cultivation, however, have been conflicting.

According to ISAAA’s report, the market value of the GM seed planted worldwide in 2005 is estimated at 5.25 billion US dollars. That adds up to 15 percent of the world pesticide market and 18 percent of the world seed market. Clive James, author of the ISAAA report, expects that the worldwide production of GM crops will continue to rise over the coming years.