The United States grows more varieties of GM crops than any other country, including maize, soybeans, cotton, canola, sugarbeet, alfalfa, papaya and squash.
Global area planted with biotech crops increased by 10 percent last year to reach 148m hectares, making it the fastest adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture, according to a new analysis.
The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), a non-profit organization which promotes the adoption of biotech crops, said in its new report that the United States still uses more genetically modified (GM) seeds than any other country, but Brazil had the largest increase for the second year running, with area planted to biotech crops rising 19 percent in 2010.
Commercial planting of GM crops began in 1996, with 1.7m hectares planted that year, and over 15 years of cultivation, the total area devoted to GM crops increased 87-fold, to reach 148m hectares in 2010. ISAAA said that adoption rates in developing nations exceeded those in industrialized countries last year and it expects the trend to continue….