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Crops generated using
laboratory methods which
directly manipulate DNA are
now commonly called
genetically manipulated or
GM crops (alternatively
trems are transgenic crops,
or biotech crops). The year
2006 will mark the 10th
anniversary of entry of
these crop varieties into
the world's agricultural
trade. This controversial
first decade of GM use
started with rapid adoption
of GM crops by the major
agricultural commodity
exporting countries. The
early GM crop users were
primarily the farmers
operating large scale
commercial farms of North
America, South America,
Australia, and South Africa.
These farmers were already
the leading users of
advanced agricultural
technologies to produce
food, feeds and fibres at
low cost for trade in
competitive world markets.
During this first decade,
rapid initial expansion of
farm are sown with GM crop
occurred despite much
controversy about the use of
modern genetic techniques in
food production, and this
healthy and robust
controversy about pros and
cons of transgenic crops is
expected to continue.
In this current paper
focuses on the events
expected to occur in the
second decade of GM crops –
the years leading up to
2016. This is a period in
which fundamental
limitations of agricultural
resources in developing
countries – such as limited
arable land area in China,
limited land and water
supply in India – will need
to be reconciled with
substantially increased food
demand from more prosperous
and larger populations.
A change was already
occurring towards the end of
the first GM crop decade in
the global character of GM
crop farming, as shown in
Figure 1. In this figure it
can be seen that during the
years 2000-2004, crop area
sown with biotech crops in
the developing countries
started to catch up with the
area sown in industrial
countries.
In the years following
2006 it can be predicted
that transgenic-crop based
agriculture will
substantially affect
economics and human welfare
in the developing countries
(principally China, India,
Argentina, Brazil and South
Africa) and change the lives
of their smaller
landholders. In developing
counties during 2004, growth
of GM crop area was
three-times stronger than it
was in industrial countries
and 90% of farmers using GM
crops were in the developing
countries. In 2004, GM crop
area sown in developing
countries was 34% of the
total 81 million hectares of
GM crops sown (ISAAA,
www.isaaa.org)
It is in developing
countries that food costs
constitute a much larger
fraction of family income
than in the rich countries
with their relatively cheap
food. In developing counties
too, more than in rich
countries, agriculture
usually forms the backbone
of the economy, but to meet
demand for food, feed, and
fibre, land and water
resources are often
stretched to the limit.
Difficulties in managing
crop losses to pests, and
crop spoilage caused by
microbes are more serious in
developing counties. For all
these these reasons, it
seems likely that
improvements in farm
productivity and avoidance
of health and environmental
costs of agriculture being
provided by transgenic crops
to developing nations are
likely to provide more
compelling arguments for the
wider acceptance of GM crops
than their current economic
successes in developed
countries.
Recent good news from the
developing world, given in
detail later, includes:
- Dramatic improvements
to Indian cotton crop
output sparked by the use
of transgenic cotton
varieties that contain a
protein that deters insect
pests.
- Better health and less
pesticide use by Chinese
rice farmers who use rice
varieties that are
protected against insect
damage by a GM trait.
These new rice varieties
enable Chinese farmers to
also get more rice from
the same land.
- Good experiences of
South African small holder
farmers in growing white
maize as their staple
food, who are enthusiastic
about being saved much
hard labour weeding in the
hot sun by sowing
transgenic maize seed that
is herbicide tolerant
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