Brussels, Belgium
22 February 2011
GM crops are being grown on over 1 billion hectares worldwide thanks in part to their higher yields. This news arrives immediately after the G20 meeting, where food security was high on the agenda. Moreover, high-level reports such as the recent Foresight report on The Future of Food and Farming, have shown that agriculture will need to produce far more food in the coming years. European farmers could contribute even more to the fight against food insecurity if they had access to all the options that exist for farmers elsewhere.
The latest figures on GM crop cultivation underline the commitment of farmers worldwide to employ technological breakthroughs to meet the world’s need for food, while also decreasing carbon emissions, saving water, and gaining economic benefits.
According to the latest report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) in 2010, 15.4 million farmers planted over 148 million hectares of biotech crops in 29 countries, up by 10 % from 2009, when there were 14 million farmers and 134 million hectares.
In Europe, the number of countries cultivating GM crops increased from 6 in 2009 to 8 in 2010, thanks to the authorization of a GM potato that is cultivated for industrial use by farmers in Sweden, Germany and Czech Republic. The number of hectares of the only other authorized GM crop in Europe, an insectresistant GM maize, decreased slightly in Europe from 94,750 hectares in 2009 to 91,643 hectares, because of lower overall maize plantings.
Carel du Marchie Sarvaas, EuropaBio’s Director for Agricultural Biotechnology asserted, “The figures released today are excellent news for farmers and consumers worldwide. And yet, European farmers are only allowed to grow two GM crops, while farmers in the Americas are allowed to grow 30+ GM crops. This is a sad and unfair situation for European farmers.”
David Hill, a UK farmer, commented, “I am always looking for new ways to improve my crop yields sustainably - both on an economic and environmental level. This is the case for farmers across the world, as the reality is that we need to meet the demands of global food supply whilst looking after the environment we live in. GM crops have to be part of our toolkit in Europe, like elsewhere in the world. Farmers want politicians to look beyond what the anti-GM groups say and put the need to produce food sustainably at the heart of the policy making agenda.”
Additional Sources
Q&A explaining the state of GM crops in the European Union
1. In 2010, GM crops were cultivated in 8 EU Member States; Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden.
2. GM crop cultivation remains limited in the European Union (EU) partly because of the limited choice farmers have with only two products on the market. Moreover, the heavy administrative burden, such as monitoring requirements and coexistence regulations, discourage farmers from planting GM crops.
3. MS cultivation bans and stringent coexistence measures restrict farmers in most MS from taking advantage of the modern seed varieties.
4. In 2010, EU farmers reduced overall area of maize planted because of the market outlook and unfavourable weather conditions. The maize price expectations influenced farmers’ planting decisions.
5. In 2010, the Amflora potato was approved for cultivation in the EU, and three countries have planted it; Germany, Sweden and Czech Republic.
6. Many farmers are constrained by restrictions placed in land rental contracts, threats by neighbours and intimidation by activists and NGOs.
7. If enough administrative barriers, restrictions and conditions are put in place by a Member State, cultivation becomes economically and logistically impossible thereby again denying farmers the choice to plant an approved crop. For example, the specificity of registration requirements for fields tends to discourage farmers from growing biotech crops.
Other messages:
15.4 million farmers grew genetically improved crops in 2010 (of whom over 90% were small scale farmers in developing countries). Global hectarage of biotech crops continued its strong growth in 2010 reaching 148 million hectares. The global agricultural surface of genetically improved crops has been increasing by 10% or more each year since their introduction in 1996*.
Many different genetically improved plants are available worldwide for cultivation but in Europe only two particular types of biotech crop have been approved so far for cultivation, i.e. the insect-resistant maize MON810 and the Amflora potato with an increased amylopectin content, which has been approved in March 2010.
In 2010 a European Commission research compendium “A decade of EU-funded GMO research”** revealed that over the last 25 years, more than 500 independent research groups have investigated the safety of genetically modified crops. They concluded, “according to the projects' results, there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.”
More compelling evidence of GM crops’ benefits to farmers continues to emerge following 15 years of commercial experience. For instance, research showed that growing insect resistant maize provides significant economic benefits even to neighbouring farmers who grow non-transgenic varieties of maize due to area wide suppression of damaging maize pests. These benefit both GM and non-GM farmers.***
For continued real growth in the adoption of biotech in Spain, Portugal and beyond, new traits, which are already safely imported and consumed in Europe, must be approved for farmers to grow on their own land. If these were approved for EU cultivation, there is no doubt that Spanish and Portugese farmers would adopt them at the same impressive rate at which they adopted MON810 following approval in 1998.
* ISAAA report 2010 on Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops http://www.isaaa.org/default.asp
** A decade of EU-funded GMO research, http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/1688
*** GM maize offers windfall for conventional farms, http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101007/full/news.2010.523.html
Topics
Species
