The European Union may still be resisting genetically-modified crops but GM plants continue to spread across farmland elsewhere.
The leading annual survey of GM in agriculture, published earlier this year by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), showed the worldwide area of “biotech crops” increasing from 114m hectares in 2007 to 125m ha in 2008, producing a harvest worth $7.5bn. The number of farmers planting GM crops rose from 12m in 22 countries to 13.3m in 25 countries.
Clive James, ISAAA chairman, says the most significant development last year was the first commercial planting of biotech crops in two African countries: maize in Egypt and cotton in Burkina Faso. Both crops contain Bt genes from bacteria, which kill insect pests. In 2007, South Africa had been the only country on the continent with GM plants: cotton, maize and soya.
Mr James, a strong supporter of GM in agriculture, says: “Future growth prospects [in Africa] are encouraging. The positive experiences in these new regional footholds will help lead the way for neighbouring countries to learn by example.”
The third country where GM crops were planted for the first time last year was Bolivia, where farmers grew herbicide-resistant soya; it is the ninth country in Latin America to adopt the technology. One new GM crop, herbicide-resistant sugar beet, was launched last year in the US and Canada.
In Europe, the total area sown with Bt maize – the only GM crop approved for planting in the EU – was little changed from the previous year at 107,000 ha.
While France suspended the planting of GM maize, this was balanced by a 21 per cent increase in seven other European countries. But it is US farmers who are responsible for half of the world’s GM acreage. They planted 62.5m ha with biotech crops in 2008.
Produce with “stacked traits” is becoming increasingly important, the ISAAA report shows. These contain two or more genetic modifications in the same plant – usually a combination of herbicide and insect resistance. Planting with stacked traits increased by 23 per cent to 27m ha in 2008.
The ISAAA review argues that biotech crops “make an impressive contribution to sustainable agriculture”, by increasing yields of food, fibre and biofuels while reducing agriculture’s environmental footprint.
Another pro-GM report this year, by the UK-based consultancy PG Economics, estimated that biotech crops cut greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 14.2m tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2007.
According to PG, biotechnology has reduced the amount of pesticide sprayed on the world’s fields by 8.8 per cent or 359m kg since the first GM crops were commercialised in 1996.
Of course many environmental groups take a very different view of GM crops. Friends of the Earth points out that their cultivation “is still confined to a handful of countries with export-oriented intensive farming.
“The most widely-grown GM crop, soy, is grown mostly as high-protein animal feed for export to the UK and Europe. GM soy monocultures in South America are wiping out forests, causing massive climate emissions and forcing communities off their lands,” says the environmental campaigner.Today’s four main GM crops are soybeans, maize, cotton and canola (oilseed rape). The most important addition in the near future will be rice – leaving wheat as the biggest crop without commercial GM varieties during the first part of the next decade.
The agricultural GM market today is dominated by Monsanto of the US and by crops that are insect resistant, herbicide tolerant or both. Over the next few years, the picture will become much more diverse.
A report published last month by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre predicts that the number of commercial GM crop varieties will quadruple from about 30 today to 120 in 2015.
By then, new traits will be available, including drought tolerance, improved nutritional quality, and optimised oil and starch content.
Drought tolerance is likely to be the most important new trait because lack of water is the greatest constraint to increased agricultural productivity worldwide.
Monsanto and BASF of Germany announced in June that their scientists had identified the bacterial gene they would transfer to maize, to help plants grow better in dry conditions. The companies say they will use the gene, known as cspB, in their first-generation drought-tolerant maize, which they plan to launch commercially in 2012.
Salt-tolerant crops will be another important GM development, though they lie further in the future.
An international research team based at the University of Adelaide in Australia announced a significant advance in July, with the development of a GM technique that restricts salt to parts of the plant where it does less damage. By keeping salt away from the growing shoots, the scientists hope to enable plants to grow in conditions too saline for conventional farming.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009.
