Business Potential for Agricultural Biotechnology - Asian Productivity ...

Business Potential for Agricultural Biotechnology Products
2004, with continued growth in both white maize, used for food, and yellow maize, used for feed,
as well as strong growth in biotech soybean, up from 35% adoption in 2003 to 50% in 2004,
while Bt cotton has stabilized at about 85% adoption. Canada increased its combined area of
biotech canola, maize, and soybean by 23%, to a total of 5.4 million ha, with 77% of its canola
area planted to biotech varieties. The adoption of herbicide-tolerant soybeans in Argentina,
which was close to 100% in 2003, continued to climb in 2004 as total plantings of soybean increased,
which along with biotech maize and cotton reached an all-time high of 16.2 million ha
of biotech crops. In the U.S., there was an estimated net gain of 11% of biotech crops in 2004 as
a result of significant increases in the area of biotech maize, followed by biotech soybean, with
modest growth in biotech cotton, which started to peak in the U.S. in 2004 as adoption
approached 80%.
Table 5. Global Area of Biotech Crops in 2003–04 by
Country (million ha)
2003 % 2004 % +/- %
U.S.* 42.8 63 47.6 59 +4.8 +11
Argentina* 13.9 21 16.2 20 +2.3 +17
Canada* 4.4 6 5.4 6 +1.0 +23
Brazil* 3.0 4 5.0 6 +2.0 +66
China* 2.8 4 3.7 5 +0.9 +32
Paraguay* – – 1.2 2 +1.2 –
India* 0.1