Canadian acreage devoted to genetically modified (GM) crops rose 13 per cent in 2007 over 2006, according to a report from an international biotech agency.
Canada’s biotech crop acres rose from 15 million acres in 2006 to 17 million last year — just above the same percentage increase that was seen worldwide, according to a count by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, quoted Wednesday in a press release by CropLife Canada, the trade group representing the pesticide and plant biotechnology industries.
Worldwide, the ISAAA reported that GM acres rose 12 per cent to 282.4 million, according to CropLife.
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Environmental group Greenpeace on Wednesday disputed the ISAAA’s report, saying it was a “piece of propaganda” that was “littered with false claims and manipulated statistics.”
Greenpeace said over 92 per cent of the world’s arable land is cultivated without genetically engineered (GE) plants and over 99 per cent of farmers worldwide don’t resort to GM crops.
“In fact, rice and wheat, two of the world’s most important staple crops, are still grown GE-free,” Jan van Aken, a Greenpeace agricultural campaigner, said in a release. “And increasingly more countries are opting for an outright ban on GE crops, as can be seen by France’s recent announcement to ban the commercial planting of GE maize.”
CropLife quoted the ISAAA numbers Wednesday in releasing its own reports on GM corn and soybean acres in Canada.
“In 2007, farmers seeded over 1.35 million acres of glyphosate-tolerant
soybeans representing approximately 65 per cent of the market share,” said Dale
Petrie, general manager of the Ontario Soybean Growers, in CropLife’s release. “The main reason behind this rate of adoption is the ease of production in weed control, no-till farming, and reduced fuel costs.”
GM corn varieties are also up to over 65 percent of corn seed market
share. Dale Mountjoy, president of the Ontario Corn Producers’ Association, said in the CropLife release that the rise is due mainly to improved insect control offered by Bt corn varieties, which are resistant to corn borers.
GM canola continues to enjoy a strong Canadian market share and farmers are also turning to new biotech crops such as sugar beets for biofuel production, CropLife noted. P.E.I. farmers plan to grow
1,400 hectares of GM sugar beets in 2008, and expect that number to double in 2009, the group said.
