The Philippines landed in 2007 on the tenth position among world’s biggest countries planting biotechnology crops with genetically modified (GM) corn’s consistent growth at now 250,000 hectares.

Clive James, chairman of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), told a press briefing that the country is blazing a trail in Asia with a fully in-place biotechnology regulation that’s speeding up adoption of biotechnology crops.

The Philippines is the third Asian country with the biggest biotechnology crop area after India (GM cotton), 6.2 million hectares and China (GM cotton), 3.8 million hectares.

"Developing countries are taking a lead in this area. We have an impact on developing countries… India, China, Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa that have 2.6 billion or 40 percent of the world’s population," James said.

GM corn expansion in the country in 2007 was at a hefty 25 percent from 200,000 hectares in 2006. Herbicide tolerant corn was planted on 110,000 hectares while Bacillus thuringiensis corn (borerresistant) was at 75,000 hectares. Stacked trait corn (containing both borer and herbicide resistance) was at 63,000 hectares.

Biotechnology crops will play a pivotal role in cutting poverty and hunger as major crops (corn, rice) which are principal sources of food, feed, and fiber have been experiencing a doubling of prices. And biotechnology crops can be the only instrument in doubling yield of these crops which is a challenge by 2050.

"Conventional crop improvement alone will not double food production by 2050. Biotech crops are not a panacea but these are important," he said.

Among the benefits of biotechnology crops, he said, is increased yield by five to 50 percent and bringing income gain for farmers by $ 7 billion in 2006 and $ 34 billion cumulative from 1996 to 2006.

James noted that as global warming confronts countries worldwide, biotechnology crops will become even more important in raising productivity without needing to raise existing land area. Bt corn crops, for instance, do not need greenhouse gas-producing chemical inputs to raise yield.

"Biotech crops protect biodiversity—doubling crop production on the same area of land, saving the forests and biodiversity at a rate of 13 million hectares loss per year in developing countries," he said.

ISAAA, a global coordinator on biotechnology propagation, noted that these crops reduced need for chemical inputs totaling to savings of 289,000 metric tons of pesticides from 1996 to 2006. This saved 15 billion kilos of carbon dioxide emission in 2006 equivalent to running 6.5 million cars.

Moreover, the social benefits include poverty alleviation for 11 million small farmers in 2007, up from 9.3 million in 2006.

ISAAA projects that by 2015, there will be 40 biotechnology countries, up from 23 at present and impacting on 200 million hectares from the present 114 million hectares. Farmers planting these crops by 2015 will have increased to 200 million.

In 2007, biotechnology crop area worldwide grew to 114.3 million, up by 12 percent in2006. This benefitted 12 million farmers, up from 10.3 million in 2006.

In the Philippines, among the important future crops will be droughttolerant grains (rice and corn), pro-Vitamin A-rich rice, and crops that are important to resource-poor farmers including the fruit and shoot borer resistant eggplant and the ring spot virus resistant papaya, James noted.

ISAAA foresees that up to 2015, biotechnology crops will continue to expand in Asia (India, China, Vietnam) and will continue to increase in area in Africa led by Egypt, Burkina Faso in West Africa, and Kenya in East Africa.

Biofuel crops will expand in US and Brazil which have corn for ethanol and GM soybean for biodiesel.

It will have slow to modest growth in European Union and potentially in Eastern Europe while continuing to grow in US, Canada, and Australia as facilited by high commodity prices.