The bio-safety regulatory body is considering giving corn farmers access to biotech corn varieties on the basis of successful completion of the trial study in Pakistan. These trials were closely monitored by the technical committees of the government.
GM Corn is being planted on millions of hectares in the world. Some of the major countries that plant biotech maize are USA, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, South Africa, Philippines, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, Egypt, etc. Many of these countries have managed to increase their crop production by using biotech seeds.
The need to employ latest agriculture technologies cannot be understated considering the fact that the global population is projected to be nine billion by the year 2050, while Pakistan population is set to soar to about 227 million people by that time. This trend, combined with dietary shifts taking place in emerging economies, means that to meet the world's food demand, agriculture must double food production.
Experts are of the view that we need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as was produced the previous 10,000 years combined and, of-course, the food must be produced in a manner that conserves resources. Pakistani farmers are facing daily battles against weeds and insects, which have the potential to decrease yield considerably.
In 2010, the one billionth "biotech hectare" was planted by 15.4 million farmers in 29 countries that now benefit from the technology. For context, a billion hectares is roughly equivalent to the land area of China. Clive James, chairman and founder of International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), who produced the report, believes this unprecedented 87-fold increase between 1996 and 2010 makes biotech crops the fastest-adopted crop technology in the history of modern agriculture. Interestingly, developing countries grew 48 percent of global biotech crops in 2010 and will exceed industrialised nations in their plantings of biotech crops by 2015.
As in Pakistan, farmers in many other countries produce white corn for food consumption and as raw material for both processed foods and industrial products. Yellow corn, on the other hand, is used both as food and as a major feed ingredient for the livestock and poultry sub-sectors.
A new publication from Leonardo Gonzales analyses the impact of biotech insect resistant and herbicide tolerant corn, alongside the introduction of corn hybrids, on land use (yield), fertiliser use, pesticide' use and farm labour efficiency. Utilising a time series of national data for 35 years, the Gonzales found that from 1975 to 2009, the land required to produce one metric ton of corn grain decreased from 1.163ha to 0.382 ha, a 67 percent improvement in land use. Over the space of two decades, total inorganic fertiliser use efficiency for corn improved by 36 percent and the overall use of pesticide had an aggregate decrease of 59 percent.-PR
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