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Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2009 The first fourteen years, 1996 to 2009

James C (2009). SAAA Brief No. 41. ISAAA: Ithaca, NY.

This paper is relevant to the Agronomic, Socio-Economic, Developing Country, and Overview Documents categories in the following areas:

Crops:	Wheat, Maize, Cotton, Potato, Soybean, Rice, Oilseed Rape, Sweet Potato, Papaya, and Other
Traits:	Insect Resistance, Herbicide Tolerance, and Insect Res. (BT)
Countries:	Global
Regions:	EU, Middle East, South America, North America, Europe, Australia / NZ, Asia, and Africa
ImpactAreas:	Agronomic, Socio-Economic, and Developing Countries

Small and large farmers in 25 countries planted 134 million hectares (330 million acres) in 2009, an increase of 7 percent or 9 million hectares (22 million acres) over 2008.
In 2009, the number of biotech famers worldwide increased by .07 million to 14.0 million, 90% of those were small and resource-poor farmers in developing countries.
For the first time, biotech soybean occupied more than three-quarters of the 90 million hectares of soybean globally, biotech cotton almost half of the 33 million hectares of global cotton, biotech maize over one-quarter of the 158 million hectares of global maize and biotech canola more than one-fifth of the 31 million hectares of global canola. Developing countries increased their share of global biotech crops to almost 50% in 2009, and are expected to their increase biotech hectarage in the future.
In 2009, Brazil narrowly displaced Argentina to become the second largest grower of biotech crops globally.
While 25 countries planted commercialized biotech crops in 2009, an additional 32 countries, totaling 57, have granted regulatory approvals for biotech crops for import for food and feed use and release into the environment since 1996.

CropLife International fully acknowledges the source and authors of the publication as detailed above.