Vietnamese farmers will be growing genetically modified crops by 2015, said Agricultural Genetics Institute head Le Huy Ham at a conference in Hanoi last week.

Since gene-altered crop research here began in 2006, some species of plants have been grown in vitro, Ham said at the conference on “World Status and Achievements in Growing Genetically Modified Crops.”

Rice, corn and soybeans are the focus of current Vietnamese research in the field, he said.

However, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development must issue regulations on testing and assessing the crops before such products could be officially launched here, said scientists at the conference.

Coordinator Randy Hautea from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) said 25 countries in the world had grown biotech crops, including 15 developing countries, on 800 million hectares of land.

ISAAA is a non-profit organization that works to transfer agricultural biotechnologies to the poor in developing countries.

Genetically modified crops have been a subject of controversy since they were first created in the 1980s.

Some experts have warned that they could be problematic for environmental reasons and could also have ill effects on the health of people who eat them.