Global trade in GM crops reaches $4.25 billion in 2002

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna – World trade in biotechnology or genetically modified (GM) crops reached $4.25 billion in 2002.

The volume of GM or transgenic crops traded last year was $450 million more than the $3.8 billion in 2001, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).

ISAAA is a not-for-profit global agency co-sponsored by public and private sector institutions. It was established in 1991 to facilitate the acquisition and transfer of agricultural biotechnology applications from the industrial to the developing countries.

Since 1995 when global trade of GM crops began, the worldwide sales of such crops have grown rapidly, ISAAA board chairman Dr. Clive James noted in a yearend report.

Starting with $1 million in 1995, global sales of GM crops rose to $148 million in 1996 and $859 million in 1997. It soared to $1.97 billion in 1998 and further substantially increased to $2.947 billion in 1999, $3.044 billion in 2000, and $3.8 billion in 2001.

In another report, Dr. James recorded that global area of transgenic crops reached 58.7 million hectares, representing an increase of 6.1 million ha over that of 2001.

The crops were grown in 16 countries by 5.5 million to six million farmers, up from five million farmers and 13 countries in 2001. Seventy-five percent of the farmers were small resource-poor ones in developing countries.

Two industrial countries (the United States and Canada) and two developing ones (China and Argentina) grew 99 percent of the global transgenic crop area.

Consistent with the pattern since 1996, the US grew the largest transgenic crop hectarage (39.7 million ha or 68 percent of the total).

It was followed by Argentina (13.5 million ha or 22 percent of the total area), Canada (3.5 million ha or six percent), and China (2.1 million ha or three percent).

South Africa grew GM crops in one million ha.

The other countries, which alloted less than one million ha each for transgenic crops, were Australia, India, Romania, Spain, Uruguay, Mexico, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Colombia, Honduras, and Germany.

For the first time in 2002, India, the largest cotton-growing country in the world, commercialized Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) cotton.

Colombia (Bt cotton) and Honduras (Bt corn) grew pre-commercial hectares of GM crops for the first time, too.

Globally, the principal transgenic crops were GM soybean, which covered 36.5 million ha (62 percent of the global area); followed by GM corn, 12.4 million ha (21 percent); transgenic cotton, 6.8 million ha (12 percent); and GM canola, three million ha (five percent).

Since 1996 when GM crops were first grown, the global area planted has increased 35-fold: from 1.7 million ha to 58.7 million ha in 2002. A sustained rate of annual growth of more than 10 percent per year has been achieved every year for the past six years.

"This ranks as one of the highest adoption rates for crop technologies," Dr. James stated.

He further noted: "More than three-quarters of the farmers that benefited from GM crops in 2002 were resource-poor cotton farmers planting Bt cotton, mainly in China and also in South Africa."

During the 1996-2002 period, herbicide tolerance has consistently been the dominant trait deployed in GM crops, with Bt insect resistance second.

Another report prepared by Dr. Randy Hautea, Los Baños-based ISAAA global coordinator, stated that major benefits have been remarkable.

In the case of GM or Bt cotton, for instance, the main benefit has been decrease of 50 percent in the number of pesticide sprays per season, which in turn reduced insecticide residues that could potentially run off into watersheds and aquifers: a decrease of 14 sprays in China (from 28 to 14), seven in South Africa, and two in the US.

Global insecticide savings attributed to Bt cotton in 2001 were 10,500 metric tons of insecticide (active ingredient or a.i.) equivalent to 13 percent of the 81,200 mt (a.i.) of all cotton insecticides used globally in 2001.

"From a health perspective," ISAAA stated, "cotton farmers in China and South Africa applying insecticides by hand with knapsacks, have significantly less potential exposure to insecticides when using Bt cotton."

Dr. James concluded: "In 2002 for the first time more than half of the world’s population lived in countries where GM crops are approved and grown. There is cautious optimism that global area and the number of farmers planting GM crops will continue to increase in 2003."