Year In Review
2019 Overview of Global GMO Development
By Jason Zhang
In recent years, genetically-modified (GM) crops have
maintained a high adoption rate. In 2018, planting area reached
a new record high of 191.7 million hectares. However, the growth
rate of planting areas used for GM crops continues to decline,
increasing by only 1% in 2018 compared to 2.54% in 2017 and 3%
in 2016. At the same time, the average adoption rate of GM crops
by the five largest GM crop-producing countries, i.e. the average
adoption rate of soybean, maize and canola, is close to its limits at
93.3% in the US, 93% in Brazil, nearly 100% in Argentina, 92.5%
in Canada and 95% in India, according to the ISAAA Report 2018.
The industry as a whole has entered a stagnant period and
continued growth is dependent on the deregulation of emerging
markets and the research and development of new products.
In 2019, 43 genetically modified organisms (GMO) were
approved around the world covering 40 varieties. Nine of these
were new crop varieties (see Table 1), including one variety of
canola, four varieties of cotton, one variety of cowpea, one variety
of soybean, and two varieties of sugarcane.
Compared to the previous two years, the total number of
approvals and the number of varieties involved declined, but
the number of newly approved varieties remained stable. In this
report, AgroPages will provide a brief interpretation of global
GMO developments in 2019 based on the following categories:
the GMO market in Argentina, the unusual adoption of GMOs in
China, and GM food labelling standards in the US.
Latest developments to the Argentine GM market
In 2018, Argentina ranked third among the top ten countries
that planted GM crops with a total planting area of 23.9 million
hectares, including 18 million hectares of GM soybeans, 5.5
million hectares of GM maize and 0.37 million hectares of GM
cotton, under an adoption rate approaching 100%.
42 Annual Review 2019
Few GM crops were approved in Argentina in the past few
years. However, after President Mauricio Macri took office, the
pace of approval accelerated. During his administration, nearly
25 GM traits were approved, almost half of all the GMO traits
is approved in the past 23 years. After deregulation in 2018,
Argentina’s GMO market experienced rapid development. Eight
GM crop applications were approved in 2018 involving maize,
soybean and alfalfa. In 2019, this number reached twelve,
accounting for nearly one-third of the total number of global
approvals this year, including six GM maize traits, three GM
soybean traits and three GM cotton traits.
In October, Argentina approved maize event MON87427 x
MON89034 x MIR162 x NK603 (Monsanto), which is the 60th GM
crop approved in this country since the first in 1996.
To support the domestic cotton industry and shorten its
technological gap with Brazil, the Argentinian government is
committed to protecting intellectual property rights and introducing
more advanced GM cotton technologies. Argentina’s National
Seed Institute (INASE) has made considerable efforts to
control illegal seeds, including by deterring farmers from using
unauthorized traits and controlling cotton seed breeding facilities to
cut off illegal seed production lines. This year, Argentina approved
three new GM cotton traits. In February, the country approved a
type of GM cotton that can resist glyphosate herbicide and HPPD
inhibitor herbicide. In June, GlyTol TwinLink Plus® GM cotton with
herbicide resistant and insect resistant traits was authorized, the
second GM cotton with insect resistant traits after BollGard was
introduced in 1998 to combat Pectinophora gossypiella, a harmful
insect that developed resistance to Bt protein and poses a serious
threat to cotton crops. In August, VIPCOT GM cotton resistant
to Lepidoptera insects was approved. The first two products
were commercialized by BASF, and VIPCOT was developed by
Syngenta and is now licensed to BASF.