FARMS in the Philippines planted to Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) or genetically manipulated corn expanded by around 14 percent to 400,000 hectares in 2009, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications (ISAAA).

ISAAA noted that the Philippines and other developing countries increased their share of global biotech crop to almost 50 percent last year, and the Philippines is among the top five countries that exhibited an increase in biotechcrop area of 10 percent or more.

Ecology and food-safety groups have repeatedly said the safety of genetically modified food crops has not been established due to the lack of information.

They traced lack of data to a number of reasons: the difficulty of evaluation owing to GMO crop foods being more complex; scarcity of publications on GMO food toxicity; and the industry’s preference for using compositional comparisons between GMO and non-GMO crops.

One of the most prominent is Greenpeace, which said that genetic engineering results in genes that do not occur naturally and their use is “genetic pollution” and is a major threat because GMOs cannot be recalled once released into the environment.

“As in the past, the 2009 percentage growth in biotech crop area continued to be significantly stronger in the developing countries (13 percent or 7 million hectares) than industrial countries (3 percent or 2 million hectares),” reported the ISAAA in its “Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2009” paper.

Its argument for the use of GMO crops is that the commercialization of Bt rice and Golden rice alone could feed at least a billion people in Asia.

The nonprofit international organization thus remains optimistic of the increasing acceptability of biotech crops especially after the Group of 20 major economies acknowledged the importance of biotech in reducing poverty and hunger, according to Dr. Clive James, ISAAA founder and chairman.

The organization expressed concern, however, over the possible impact of the El Niño weather phenomenon on the expansion of hectarage planted to GM corn.

“We haven’t come up with a revised target yet for 2010. It’s too early to tell. We are still monitoring the effects of El Niño not only to Bt corn but also to other crops, as well,” said Dr. Randy A. Hautea, global coordinator and Southeast Asia Center director of ISAAA, at a media briefing in Makati on Monday.

ISAAA had projected that farmlands planted to Bt corn will expand to 480,000 hectares in 2009, from 350,000 hectares in 2008.

Aside from GM corn, Hautea said the Philippines is also making a multilocation trial of Bt eggplant and a greenhouse trial of Bt cotton.

ISAAA estimated that the global biotech seed market alone was valued at $10.5 billion in 2009 while biotech maize (corn), soybean grain, and cotton was estimated at $130 billion in 2008.

Greenpeace slammed commercial interests, however, for denying the public the right to know about GE ingredients in the food chain, “and therefore losing the right to avoid them despite the presence of labelling laws in certain countries.”

“Biological diversity must be protected and respected as the global heritage of humankind, and one of our world’s fundamental keys to survival. Governments are attempting to address the threat of GE with international regulations such as the Biosafety Protocol,” it said.

“When they are not significantly different, the two are regarded as ‘substantially equivalent,’ and therefore the GM food crop is regarded as safe as its conventional counterpart. This ensures that GM crops can be patented without animal testing,” according to the groups.

However, substantial equivalence “is an unscientific concept that has never been properly defined” and there are no legally binding rules on how to establish it.

Greenpeace also said GMO foods may cause bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics and they can also produce allergies