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Nine Countries in Asia and the Pacific Planted 19.5 Million Hectares of Biotech Crops

Nine Countries in Asia and the Pacific Planted 19.5 Million Hectares of Biotech Crops

By Clement Dionglay

July 14, 2021

Nine countries in Asia and the Pacific grew biotech crops including India, China, Pakistan, Philippines, Australia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Bangladesh for a total of 19.5 million hectares, equivalent to 10.2% of the global biotech crop area in 2019, a 2% increase from the previous year.

India is the leading biotech crop growing country in Asia, with a total biotech cotton area of 11.9 million hectares, followed by China with 3.2 million hectares of biotech cotton and papaya, and Pakistan with 2.5 million hectares of biotech cotton. All three planted more than 1 million hectares of biotech cotton and included in the top 10 countries that planted biotech crops in 2019. The majority of these nine countries plant biotech cotton and maize. Other biotech crops grown in Asia and the Pacific include papaya, canola, safflower, sugarcane, and brinjal/eggplant.

Increases in the biotech area were obtained in India (3%), China (8%), Philippines (38%), Vietnam (46%), Bangladesh (22%), and Indonesia (32%). The favorable global cotton prices have positively impacted biotech cotton production in India and China, while public acceptance of clean and hazard-free biotech brinjal/eggplant motivated more farmers to plant the Bt crop in Bangladesh.

Filipino farmers were motivated to plant more biotech maize due to the favorable climate during the maize planting period and the attractive global maize prices. In Vietnam, the high price of imported maize and increasing fall armyworm incidence helped increase the biotech maize area. At the moment, the planting of drought tolerant sugarcane in Indonesia is only limited to government-owned farms.

An estimated 16 million farmers in India, China, Pakistan, the Philippines, Australia, Myanmar, and Bangladesh have benefited immensely in the last 23 years of biotech crop commercialization. Economic benefits estimated by Brookes and Barfoot (2020) from the respective countries since the start year of planting until 2018 is over US$56.1 billion and US$3.7 billion for 2018 alone.

To learn more about nine biotech crop-growing countries in Asia and the Pacific, download the new and updated Biotech Country Facts and Trends from the ISAAA website.

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