Farmers around the world picked an odd way to celebrate 20 years of genetically modified crops.
For the first time in the two decades since GM crops were first commercialized growers planted fewer acres than the year before, according to a report by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA).
Farmers seeded 444 million acres of biotech crops in 2015, down one percent from the previous year.
Ian Affleck, CropLife Canada’s managing director of regulatory affairs for plant biotechnology, said the decline is the direct result of weather problems and falling commodity prices in 2015.
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The price and weather factors reduced global plantings of the principal grains and oilseeds and forced growers to consider alternatives like pulses, sorghum and sunflower, which have not been genetically modified.
Canada is a case in point. Farmers planted about 657,000 fewer acres of grains and oilseeds while increasing pulse and special crops by 341,000 acres.
Affleck noted that the adoption rate of biotech crops in major biotech markets is between 90 and 100 percent, which leaves little room for expansion in those places and also ties the fortunes of biotech crops closely with overall crop acreage.
“For these kinds of statistics you’re a victim of your own success,” he said.
Lucy Sharratt, co-ordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN), offered an alternative theory for the smaller GM crop area.
“We do know there is an increased demand for non-GM food ingredients in the U.S. consumer market,” she said.
Sharratt agreed with Affleck that GM crops may be reaching their saturation point in major exporting regions such as North and South America.
“Without new GM crops and new technologies coming forward it may be that we’re at a point at which growth is not possible,” she said.
ISAAA said the technology is far from reaching the saturation point. It estimates GM corn has the potential to gain another 250 million acres, primarily in Asia and Africa. And it noted that 85 potential new products are being field-tested.
The report claims GM crops have boosted crop revenues by US$150 billion over the past 20 years, by increasing yields 22 percent, reducing pesticides by 37 percent and increasing farm profits 68 percent.
“More farmers are planting biotech crops in developing countries precisely because biotech crops are a rigorously tested option for improving yields,” Clive James, ISAAA founder said in a press release.
“Despite claims from opponents that biotechnology only benefits farmers in industrialized countries, the continued adoption of the technology in developing countries disproves that.”
An estimated 17 to 18 million farmers planted biotech crops in 28 countries in 2015, 90 percent of whom were small, poor farmers in developing countries.
Sharratt noted that many of those farmers are located in India where there is controversy swirling around the technology.
Monsanto has threatened to pull out of India after the Indian government imposed a cut amounting to about 70 percent of royalties that Indian companies pay Monsanto for access to its GM cotton seed, which accounts for over 90 percent of the cotton grown in the country.
According to a Bloomberg story, India’s Cotton Advisory Board estimates yields have jumped 70 percent since GM cotton was introduced in 2002.
But cotton farmer incomes in India have been slumping in recent years due to a glut of cotton on the world market and back-to-back shortfalls in the monsoon rains.
Farmers are also angry about increasing pink bollworm damage to fields planted with Monsanto’s Bt cotton.
“The question of whether or not (Bt cotton) is a success for farmers is hotly debated,” said Sharratt.
India became the world’s leading cotton producer in 2015. Affleck noted that 95 percent of the country’s 28.7 million acres were planted with biotech seed.
“I think the continued adoption of that product in India speaks to its success,” he said.
Sharratt also questions claims of reduced pesticide use with biotech crops.
CBAN has determined that the volume of pesticides sold in Canada increased 130 percent between 1994 and 2011.
“So the Canadian experience is not reflected in that (ISAAA) global summary,” she said.
