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.

Yesterday, several experts discussed the role of biotechnology in agricultural production. Here are some of their thoughts on the future of sustainable agriculture and biotechnology.

Jason Clay, SVP, Market Transformation, WWF – Talapia and catfish, both farm-raised, will be the “next white meat.” They require fewer natural resources than livestock and produce the needed daily protein requirement. Also, we’ll need to invest in tropical trees since many of our food products will come from tropical trees. We’ll need to invest in palm trees, cacoa trees, cassava, and sorghum.

Weibin Yin, CEO, Longping High-Tech Agriculture – We’ll need to look at policies that support better pricing of commodity crops to make farming and agriculture profitable.

William Dar, Director General, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics – We will need to invest in dry-land crops grown in regions where the most vulnerable populations live. Crops like sorghum and millet would benefit from further biotech research.

Seyfu Ketema, Exec. Director, Assoc. for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa – In Africa, sorghum and millet are very important. We will need to increase production of these crops.

Finally, Ms. H. E. Gerda Verburg, Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, The Netherlands, quoted Namibia’s Minister of the Environment, “If you do what you did, you get what you’ve got.” She reiterated that nations, public and private sector industries, multilateral organizations, farm organizations and all stakeholders will need to work together to meet critical food needs while practicing sound environmental stewardship. She urged everyone not to continue with the status quo.

India’s biotechnology regulators, the Genetically Engineering Appraisal Committee, approved the use of BT eggplants today. The committee will make their recommendation to the Indian government, and with the approval of Parliament, BT eggplants will provide the first biotech vegetables to be produced on local farms. These eggplants are engineered to provide resistance to a devastating natural pest known as the shoot borer, potentially increasing yields by 40%.

“This is fantastic news,” said said Rajeesh Kumar, a vegetable farmer from Swarnapuri, India and a participant in the Global Farmer-to-Farmer Roundtable at the World Food Prize Symposium. “Crop failure has been a problem for many farmers, who often borrow huge sums of money in order to plant. Biotech crops like these eggplant decrease crop failures and we need more technology to come soon.”

 To read more about the Appraisal Committee’s decision, click here.

To learn more about the importance of eggplant production to India and Southeast Asia (28% of total vegetable volume), you can read The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) report on BT eggplant here.