The international agricultural community, including the Philippines, has significantly increased its adoption of crop varieties processed through modern biotechnology.
The finding was disclosed at a recent briefing for media conducted by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research on Agriculture, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications and other agriculture research agencies.
The SEARCA briefing said that as of 2013, some 800,000 hectares of farmland in the country are already planted with the pesticide-free biotech corn variety, up from 750,000 hectares in 2012. The feat placed the Philippines in the number 12 spot among the world’s top users of biotech crop varieties, SEARCA said.
The ISAAA, meanwhile, reported that some 18 million farmers in 27 countries had adopted biotech crops as of 2013. The total size of farmlands planted to these pesticide-free varieties also increased from 1.7 million hectares in 1996 to over 175 million hectares in 2013, the ISAA report said.
