Cultivation of transgenic crops on the rise worldwide
San Jose, April 26, 2010, (IICA). In 2009, the total land area plante
d in transgenic crops reached 134 million hectares, an increase of 7% over 2008 despite the global recession. This increase can be attributed basically to an increase in the number of farmers who have opted to use this technology.
This was the finding of a study entitled “The marketing of biotechnological/genetically modified crops in 2009,” presented by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in a videoconference involving specialists and decision makers from the public and private sectors of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Colombia Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Peru and the Dominican Republic.
The study, prepared by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agro-biotech Applications (ISAAA), indicates that the number of countries producing transgenic crops held at 25 in 2009, vs. the previous year, with Costa Rica joining and Germany withdrawing.
In terms of area planted, and in descending order, the countries are United States, Brazil, Argentina, India, Canada, China, Paraguay, South Africa, Uruguay, Bolivia, Philippines, Australia, Burkina Faso, Spain, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Czech Republic, Portugal, Rumania, Poland, Costa Rica, Egypt and Slovakia. Of these, 16 are developing countries and account for 50% of the production of transgenics worldwide.
The acting Director of IICA’s Biotechnology and Biosafety Area, Ramon Lastra, underscored the importance of biotechnology as a tool in boosting and improving food security around the world.
For her part, a researcher from the Agricultural Research Institute (INIA) of Chile, Maria Teresa Pino, addressed the opportunities biotechnology offers for overcoming the effects of climate change. During the presentation of the report, the Deputy Director for Communication and Dissemination on Biotechnology and Biosafety of the Intersecretarial Commission on Biosafety of Genetically Modified Organisms (CIBIOGEM) of Mexico, Rosa Gonzalez, spoke on the importance of communication in the public’s perception of biotechnology.
Biotechnological (transgenic) crops, or genetically modified organisms (GMOs), are those whose genetic material has been modified via the introduction of genes of the same or other species, for the purpose of endowing them with some characteristic they do not possess naturally.
The principle transgenic crops marketed worldwide are corn, soybeans, cotton and canola, etc.
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