CBI Expert Dr. Pamela Ronald, Professor of Plant Pathology at UC-Davis and author of Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics and the Future of Food, provided CBI, in the lead-up to our BIO 2010 panel about public perception and agricultural biotechnology, her expert opinion on this important topic. Thanks, Pam!

Council for Biotechnology Information: What do you believe is the public’s perception of agricultural biotechnology and do you believe this is a fair portrayal of the science?

Dr. Ronald: There is no doubt that GE [genetically engineered] crops have an image problem in Europe and in some parts of the US. Part of the problem is that many see the process of GE as a tool that only benefits large corporations and large farmers in the US and other countries. But it’s also a tool for breeding, it’s a tool for biologists, it’s a tool for farmers. READ MORE »

CBI Expert Dr. Bruce Chassy, Professor of food microbiology and nutritional sciences at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and co-founder of Academics Review, will be participating in CBI’s panel at the 2010 BIO International Convention about public perception and agricultural biotechnology. He was kind of enough to offer us some of his initial thoughts on this critical subject. We look forward to hearing more from Dr. Chassy on May 5 at BIO 2010!

Council for Biotechnology Information: What do you believe is the public’s perception of agricultural biotechnology, and do you believe this is a fair portrayal of the science?

Dr. Chassy: I think the regular surveys that IFIC (International Food Information Council) does provide a pretty good insight into what the majority of consumers are thinking.  Their most recent survey shows that great the majority of Americans do not view ag biotech, and in particular transgenic crops or GM [Genetically Modified] foods, as a food safety concern. READ MORE »

Thank you to our blog readers, Facebook fans and Twitter followers for participating in our recent survey! (And congratulations to Chris Kafer, the winner of our drawing to win a year’s subscription to The Economist!)

We are using your feedback to help us improve the information we provide about agricultural biotechnology! We have already implemented some of your suggestions, including guest blogs, providing more science reports and new updates about agricultural biotechnology.

The full results:

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The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) released its annual report on the global status of commercialized biotech crops in 2009. In addition to sharing the state of agricultural biotechnology worldwide, the ISAAA report discusses major developments impacting biotech crop adoption, including China’s landmark decision to approve biotech rice and phytase maize and a future with drought tolerant crops and golden rice.

Please see the charts from the ISAAA report to learn about the 25 countries that have adopted biotech crops and the growth of agricultural biotechnology in the United States and worldwide.

Below are some highlights from the latest ISAAA report:

• Small and large farmers in 25 countries planted 134 million hectares (330 million acres) in 2009, an increase of 7 percent or 9 million hectares (22 million acres) over 2008.
• In 2009, the number of biotech famers worldwide increased by .07 million to 14.0 million, 90% of those were small and resource-poor farmers in developing countries.
• For the first time, biotech soybean occupied more than three-quarters of the 90 million hectares of soybean globally, biotech cotton almost half of the 33 million hectares of global cotton, biotech maize over one-quarter of the 158 million hectares of global maize and biotech canola more than one-fifth of the 31 million hectares of global canola.
  
• Developing countries increased their share of global biotech crops to almost 50% in 2009, and are expected to their increase biotech hectarage in the future.
• In 2009, Brazil narrowly displaced Argentina to become the second largest grower of biotech crops globally.
• While 25 countries planted commercialized biotech crops in 2009, an additional 32 countries, totaling 57, have granted regulatory approvals for biotech crops for import for food and feed use and release into the environment since 1996.