Biotech crops enjoying bumper growth: study

Genetically modified crops enjoyed a bumper year in 2008, with an additional 10.7 million hectares (26.4 million acres) planted globally and growth prospects set to expand rapidly, a biotech group said Wednesday.

Some 13.3 million farmers in a record 25 countries planted 125 million hectares (309 million acres) of biotech crops last year, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) said in its annual report.

It reflected a 9.4 percent increase in area covered from 114.3 million hectares (282 million acres) in 2007, the group said. An additional 1.3 million farmers adopted the genetically modified technology last year.

"Future growth prospects are encouraging," ISAAA chairman Clive James and author of the study told reporters.

Citing both rich and emerging nations, he said political leaders were increasingly viewing biotech enhanced crops as "a key part of the solution to critical social issues of food security and sustainability."

By the end of the second decade of commercialization of biotech crops in 2015, ISAAA predicted that a total of 1.61 billion hectares (four billion acres) will have been planted.

With food security a key concern, biotech crops were increasing yields, which increase food availability and supply, and reducing production costs, which would also ultimately help reduce food, James said.

But biotech opponents claim these crops benefited biotech food giants instead of small farmers and the world's hungry population.

They also say that such crops have led to a jump in chemical use and failed to increase yields.

"GM crops are all about feeding biotech giants, not the world?s poor," said Nnimmo Bassey, head of Friends of the Earth International, a global environment watchdog, said in a report this week.

"GM seeds and the pesticides used with them are much too expensive for Africa?s small farmers. Those who promote this technology in developing countries are completely out of touch with reality," he said in a statement.