Module 2 - Biotechnology, Biosafety, and Agricultural Development

Although commercial transgenic varieties have been developed for only a small number of crops and traits, the area planted to transgenic crops has grown very rapidly since the first crop was commercialized in 1994, reaching 90 million hectares by 2005 (figure 2.5). Over 8 million farmers in 21 countries grow transgenic varieties. Of these farmers, 7.7 million are small-scale farmers in developing countries. The first 10 years of large-scale production of transgenic varieties has been dominated by the private sector, both as the developer and as the dissemination channel for the technology, with an emphasis on export crops and traits of interest to industrial countries. For the full benefits of biotechnology to reach poor farmers and consumers in developing countries, national and international public institutions will need support to build research capacity in agricultural biotechnology, complemented by the managerial skills required to negotiate access to proprietary technologies developed by other private and public research organizations. Developing country scientists need to be able to apply these innovations to national varieties of food and export crops. Some benefits can be achieved by using biotechnology to increase the accuracy and speed of conventional breeding methods, whereas others can only be achieved, or only be achieved sufficiently quickly, through the use of transgenic breeding methods.

 

Figure 2.5 Global area of biotech crops, 1996-2005 (million acres)