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Farmer Demand Drives Global Biotech Acreage to New Highs

Quentin Martin is a corn and soybean grower at West Montrose, Ontario who is part of a global revolution that has changed how 8.5 million farmers grow their crops.

Quentin Martin is a corn and soybean grower at West Montrose, Ontario who is part of a global revolution that has changed how 8.5 million farmers grow their crops. His 700 soybean acres and 200 corn acres are part of a long-term crop rotation that with biotech seed, nitrogen-fixing cover crops and more surgical use of herbicides, allows him to control weeds on a long-term basis. "Like farmers everywhere, if new technology works, we'll keep using it," explains Martin. That's why Canadian biotech acreage continues to climb to 14.3 million acres,¹ but so does acreage on virtually every continent of the world.

The 10th annual report of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) showed an 11 percent increase in biotech crop plantings in 2005, the addition of four new countries commercializing biotech crops and a quarter million more farmers planting biotech seeds. This means biotech seed was planted on 222 million acres in 21 countries, an increase of more than fifty-fold since biotech crops were first commercialized in 1996. Most telling is that these global trends were announced against the backdrop of Sao Paolo, Brazil, a country that almost doubled its biotech soybeans to 23 million acres last year.²

Canada currently claims fourth spot in the world for biotech acres, following the United States, Argentina and Brazil. Unlike the United States where most of the growth is in biotech soybean acres, most of Canada's growth is in canola of which 82 percent of the crop is from herbicide-tolerant varieties. Corn and soybean crops enjoy 60 percent adoption rates with both herbicide-tolerance and insect-resistance.

Within the canola sector, there is increasing excitement about high-stability oils, which farmers grow under contract to go directly to food processors. Expect this market to grow because these specialty canola oils meet a food manufacturing need for transfat-free products. Darcy Rafoss, Manager Seed Business Unit for Saskatchewan Wheat Pool predicts that eventually one-quarter to one-third of the canola acres will be specialty-oil varieties.³

Currently, three major companies produce their own brands of canola oil including Natreon Oil from Dow AgroSciences, Cargill's Clear Valley Canola Oil, and the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool's SP Craven low-linolenic acid canola. In particular, Dow AgroScience's Natreon canola oil is being embraced in Japan, a country with sophisticated and segmented oil markets. The oil has gained so much popularity in retail bottle and food service that it's been touted as healthy and light.

While the new oil traits are developed using traditional plant breeding, the tools of biotechnology are used to advance selection and accelerate program development. These new traits benefit everyone in the food chain. "From grower, to processor, to end-user, Nexera canola contracts bring value," says Brent Zacharias, Canola Trait Marketing Specialist for Dow AgroSciences. "We estimate that over the past few years, growers have received over $34 million of incremental value by growing Nexera canola over commodity canola."

Biotech corn varieties are also in demand for feed and industrial uses. Some varieties are engineered to have a higher starch profile, which makes them more efficient when transformed into ethanol. Others are in demand for bioproducts that range from carpet to biodegradable cutlery.⁴

Canada's strong research record and its proximity to the United States means that new advances in biotechnology are launched in North America first. Canada is one of a handful of countries — United States, Australia, Mexico and South Africa — to plant "stacked" traits,⁵ up to three traits in one crop. That means farmers have the option of planting corn seed that is not only herbicide-tolerant but resistant to two pests: corn borer and corn rootworm. Farmers choose the appropriate mix according to pest prevalence and populations. Varieties with stacked traits account for 10 per cent of the global area with 247 million "trait acres" planted in 2005.

In other parts of the world, two key trends are emerging from the ISAAA report. First, developing countries adopted biotech crops at a rate five times faster than industrialized nations between 2004 and 2005. Farmers in resource-poor countries such as China, India, South Africa and the Philippines are generating more profit and higher yields from planting biotech varieties. India, for example, tripled its Bt cotton production to 3.2 million acres in 2005.⁶ Importantly, Iran grew its first crop of pest-resistant rice,⁷ just months before China is expected to do the same.⁸

Secondly, despite the headlines generated by French activist Jose Bove, the facts show that anti-biotech Europe is slowly dismantling its barriers. Biotech maize is being grown in five European countries including France, Portugal, Spain, Germany, and for the first time in 2005, the Czech Republic. Public monies are actively pledged to significant research in everything from maize to grapes to potatoes.⁹

Seeds are universal, so it's no surprise that farmers on a global basis have quickly understood biotechnology and its ability to solve persistent agronomic problems. The 10-year-old technology now moves into the second decade of research and development with promise of products that meet processing and industrial needs.

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