Biotech Updates

New Figures Show Increase in European GM Crop Cultivation

October 31, 2007

Latest figures released by the European biotech industry association, EuropaBio, show that the area planted to genetically modified crops in Europe has grown by 77 percent since last year. The increase was noted despite the fact that BT maize, which was approved in 1998, is the only genetically modified crop grown in the continent.

This year over 100 thousand hectares of GM maize has been harvested. The acreage of biotech crops has increased four times in France and more than doubled in Germany, Portugal and the Czech Republic. In Spain, the largest cultivator of GM crops, there has been more than 40 percent increase in the area of cultivation and this after 10 years of planting GM maize. Other countries like Slovakia, Romania and Poland also showed significant increase in the amount of GM crops harvested.

Read more at http://www.europabio.org/ne_GMOfigureslaunch.htm