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Growers at Farm Bureau meeting say they'll increase GMO plantings (Thursday, Jan. 23, 2003 -- CropChoice news) -- Reuters, via Agnet: A Reuters survey released on Wednesday was cited as finding
that American farmers are poised to boost plantings of biotech corn by
nearly 10 percent this year amid growing U.S. pressure on the European Union
to lift a ban on imports of genetically modified crops.
The story says that the straw poll of 340 growers, conducted at the American
Farm Bureau Federation's annual meeting, estimated that U.S. 2003 plantings
for Roundup Ready corn will jump by 9.9 percent and Roundup Ready soybeans
by 8.4 percent.
However, Bt corn plantings posted the only decline among the five major
biotech crops included on the survey, falling 3.8 percent. The story adds
that gene-altered cotton plantings will also rise in 2003, according to the
survey.
Roundup Ready cotton plantings will be up 4.0 percent, while Bt cotton will
rise by 5.2 percent, according to farmers polled at the meeting.
The story cites U.S. Agriculture Department data as saying that 34 percent
of corn in 2002 was grown with biotech seeds, up from 26 percent a year
earlier. Biotech soybeans rose to 75 percent of the total U.S. soybean crop
in 2002, up from 68 percent in the previous year.
Biotech cotton accounted for 71 percent of the crop in 2002, up 2 percent
from 2001, according to the USDA.
In a related story, nearly half of U.S. farmers polled in the same survey
said they were undecided or opposed to growing biotech crops engineered to
produce drugs for ailments like diabetes, with 13 percent opposed to
planting pharmaceutical crops and half saying they would consider planting
the new kinds of crops, which are expected to command premium prices.
Another 35 percent of growers said they needed more information about health
and safety issues before deciding whether to grow them.
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