BEIJING, Jan 29 (Reuters) — Asia is set to become the driving force behind biotech crops in the next decade, despite hesitance by China to commercialize GMO rice, a Chinese scientist and an international body said on Monday.

In 2006, the first year of the second decade of biotech crops, India took over China as the world’s top grower of genetically modified (GMO) cotton, the pro-biotech International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).

"The second decade will likely feature strong growth in Asia led by China, India and new countries like Pakistan and Vietnam," it said in a report. "The first decade (1996-2005) was the decade of the Americans."

ISAAA said India, which planted Bt cotton for the first time in 2002, had tripled acreage for insect-resistant Bt cotton in 2006 to 3.8 million hectares, surpassing 3.5 million hectares in China.

Jikun Huang, a scientist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, attributed China’s fall to a decreased cotton acreage.

Beijing has encouraged farmers to grow more grains due to the country’s food security concerns in the past few years.

But Huang said favorable weather helped China boost its 2006 cotton output by 17.8 percent to 6.73 million tons. More than 60 percent of Chinese grown cotton was Bt cotton.

"The biotechnology has helped farmers reduce cost and raise production on limited land," said Huang, a Chinese scientist known for promoting biotechnology.

Bt cotton increased income of some 6.8 million farmers as it cut pesticide use by 60 percent, while raising yields by 10 percent compared with conventional varieties, said Huang.

But Huang said Beijing was still against commercialization of GMO rice, a staple food for many of its 1.3 billion people.

"We still hope GMO rice could also be approved for production in the next two to three years," said Huang, adding Beijing was reluctant to give go-ahead because of social and political reasons. He did not elaborate.

Though Beijing looked close to approving GMO rice in early 2005, it has put the brakes on the move following reports that transgenic rice was traded illegally in China.

As Beijing was eager to develop biofuel to reduce its reliance on imported oil, Huang said rapeseed could be the next farm product approved by Beijing for commercial production after it had approved the production of GMO papaya in 2006.

China also plans to raise its budget for biotechnology after spending about 2 billion yuan a year, which mainly goes to the research of GMO rice, said Huang.