The adoption of technology to produce genetically modified (GM) crops has become the fastest growing technology worldwide and the subsequent commercialisation globally has been unprecedented, Life Sciences for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) group executive Professor Maurice Moloney said on Friday.

The amount of hectares carrying biotechnology grown crops had increased more than 100-fold from 1.7-million in 1996 to 170-million hectares by 2012, rising to a record 175.2-million hectares in 2013.

Speaking at a press conference in Pretoria following the International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Application’s (ISAAA’s) release of the 'Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2013', he explained that double-digit growth was experienced in many of the 18 years of global commercialisation, with adoption in the countries growing these crops taking place in an entirely free market.

The commercialisation of GM crops, Moloney noted, was “sweeping the world” at an unprecedented rate, providing sustainable food security for humans and animals, poverty alleviation for billions of people and significant benefits to the environment.

During 2013, more than 18-million farmers – 90% of whom were risk-adverse, smallholder resource-poor farmers in developing countries – were leveraging GM crop technology across 27 countries, which collectively boasted 60%, or about four-billion, of the world’s population.

“Farmers chose these crops because [they] performed for them, delivering greater returns, improving soil health, reducing pesticide use and input costs, and delivering much-needed sustainability in farming practice,” Moloney said.

Between 1996 and 2012, biotech crops made a significant contribution to food security and sustainability, and had achieved economic gains of about $117-billion, owing to reduced production costs, through less ploughing, fewer pesticide sprays and less labour, and increased productivity, with yields in excess of 377-million tons, stated the ISAAA report.

Further, biodiversity reaped benefits through the saving of an additional 123-million hectares of land from agricultural production during the same period.

Moloney commented that GM crops had eliminated the use of 497-million kilograms of pesticides and reduced carbon emissions by 27-billion kilograms in 2012 – the equivalent of removing 12-million cars from the road for one year.

Nineteen of the 27 countries that had adopted GM crops were developing countries, which had, for the second consecutive year, planted more hectares than the eight industrial countries using GMO crops.

South Africa, which recorded the fifteenth consecutive year of commercial GM crop undertakings, ranked eighth in GM crop adoption around the world and “set an example for the rest of Africa, boasting a 2.7-million-hectare biotech crop area for maize, soybean and cotton”, Moloney said.

During the period from 1998 to 2012, the nation’s economic gains from these crops reached $1.15-billion – $218.5-million of which was recorded in 2012 alone.

The five leading developing countries, namely China, India, Brazil – which had become the “engine of biotech crop growth globally” – Argentina and South Africa, collectively added 82.7-million hectares, accounting for 47% of global GM crop growth.

The US maintained its position as the leader in GM crop development, accounting for 40% of the world’s output from 70.1-million hectares, followed by Brazil with 40.3-million hectares, achieving record growth of 3.7-million in 2013.

Argentina ranked third-largest with 24.4-million hectares, followed by India with 11-million hectares, Canada with 10.8-million hectares and Paraguay at 3.6-million hectares.

Moloney said the rest of Africa’s adoption of GM crops looked promising, as Burkina Faso hiked its biotech-grown cotton hectares by 50% to 474 299 ha in 2013 and Sudan increased its biotech cotton commercialisation from 20 000 ha to 62 000 ha.

Further, seven more African countries, namely Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda, had undertaken their own field trials on a range of biotech crops, including cotton, maize, bananas and cowpeas.

“Recent developments in Africa are an indication of the interest in [the continent] to produce a second wave of biotech crops that are suited to the local geographic and climate conditions in Africa,” the ISAAA report pointed out.

The report documented Africa’s overall low food productivity despite holding 31-million hectares.

Currently, average maize yields were generally below 2 t/ha, while South Africa, which grew GM maize, averaged 4.2 t/ha. The report showed that there was “substantial” room for yield increases in Africa, citing the 10 t/ha average yields of maize cultivars grown in the US.

Moloney commented that South Africa had a “special responsibility” to assist its sister nations in Africa in evaluating and adopting these technologies to the benefit of the rapidly growing population of the continent.

Crop yields in Africa were severely limited by drought and soil quality, as well as plant diseases that are less common in temperate climates.

GM crops had reduced the use of agricultural chemicals and “dramatically” improved soil quality and water retention in many countries, added Moloney.