The Philippines remains to be in the forefront of GM/biotech corn adoption in the Asian region being the only country in Asia to grow GM/biotech food. In 2009, the area planted to genetically modified corn is projected to increase to about 490,000, from 11,000 hectares of Bt corn when it was first planted in 2003. This is based on the projection data shared by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) during the recent Seminar of its Chair and Founder, Dr. Clive James, on the Global Overview of Biotech/GM Crop: 2009 - Current Status, Impact and Future Prospect. The event participated by academicians, scientists, regulators, policy makers, technology developers and farmers was co-organized by the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), the SEAMEO Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEAMEO SEARCA), and ISAAA.

According to the recently published ISAAA Brief 41, the Philippines has already gained farm level economic benefit of planting biotech corn estimated at US$88 million from 2003 to 2008 adoption. ISAAA also estimated that the number of small resource-poor farmers, growing an average of 2 hectares of biotech corn, was estimated at 250,000 in 2009.

Joseph Benemerito, a small-scale corn farmer from Alfonso Lista, Ifugao, started planting biotech corn in 2006. His corn harvest increased from 3 to 3.5 metric tons per hectare from conventional corn to 7 to 8 metric tons per hectare from biotech corn. Mr. Benemerito is a recipient of National Best Quality Corn Farmer in 2008 and shared his own experience in planting insect resistant, herbicide tolerant and stacked trait corn during the seminar.

“Originally, about 12,000 hectares of land is propagated with corn in Alfonso Lista. But due to the benefits derived from adopting biotech corn- increased yield, lower production cost and increased net income, area planted to corn now increased to about 20,000 hectares” shared by Mr. Benemerito.

With the first hand benefits derived from planting biotech corn, Mr. Benemerito remains hopeful that biotechnological innovation will continue to help small scale farmers and looks forward to planting more biotech crops with important traits. “I do hope that more scientific researchers be done to raise the status of our agricultural sector, more discoveries and commercialization of GM/biotech crops should be explored to make farming profitable and sustainable among farmers throughout the world. We are now happy with what we have but getting worried with the El Nino. I am glad that there are now researches on drought tolerance. We are also hoping to have some Bt vegetables in the future, just like Bt eggplant and ampalaya (bitter gourd).”

Biotech/GM crops are considered to be one of the fastest crop technology adopted in the Philippines. Upon the initial approval for the commercial propagation of Bt corn MON 810 in 2002, adoption to GM/biotech corn tremendously increased through time, as new traits were approved and introduced in the market particularly the herbicide tolerant-corn (Round-up Ready RR corn) and stacked trait corn (Bt and RR) which were both propagated in 2005. The Philippines grew about 2.68M hectares of corn in 2009, 1.28M hectares is yellow corn with an average yield of 3.18 tons/ha. In 2009, about 25.5% of all yellow corn is biotech.

To date, the Philippines has 49 approvals for the direct use /importation of biotech crops for food, feed and processing for crops such as corn, alfalfa, sugarbeet, soybean, potato and squash. Five events have been approved for commercial propagation.

For additional updates on agricultural biotechnology in the Philippines, visit www.bic.searca.org or email bic@agri.searca.org.

For more information, please contact:

Ms. Jenny A. Panopio
Special Project Coordinator & Network Administrator
Biotechnology Information Center
SEAMEO SEARCA
College, Laguna 4031
Email: jap at agri.searca.org
Tel: (63-49)536-2290 loc 169 or 406
Tele/Fax: (63-49)536-4105
URL: www.bic.searca.org