Global GM crop planting area reaches new high: report

Global planting area of biotech or genetically modified (GM) food rose to a new peak last year, with the United States leading the field, according to a latest industry report.

The past 21 years has witnessed a 110-fold increase in adoption rate of biotech crops, surging from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to 185 million hectares in 2016, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) said in a report released in Beijing Thursday.

In 2016, 26 countries in total, including 19 developing countries and 7 industrial ones, grew biotech crops, noted the report titled "Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2016".

The leading countries growing biotech crops continued to be represented by the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Canada and India, with these five countries planting 91 percent of the global biotech crop area, it added.

China ranked 8th among countries planting biotech crops, and the major biotech crops planted in China were cotton, papaya and poplar, said the report.

The ISAAA is a not-for-profit international organization sharing the benefits of crop biotechnology to various stakeholders, particularly resource-poor farmers in developing countries, through knowledge sharing initiatives and the transfer and delivery of proprietary biotechnology applications. Endi