Biotechnology: a tool to improve global food supply (ENGLISH)

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The aforementioned words belong to the lecture given by Secretary of the Southern Agricultural Council (CAS) and Argentina representative before the Inter-American Institute for Agricultural Cooperation (IICA in Spanish), Alejandra Sarquís (Agricultural Engineer) during the Biotechnology roundtable held at the 1st South American Forum of Agriculture - CAS 2013. The official also noted that 90% of countries that use genetically modified organism (GMO) or transgenic, are developing nations, being led -due to their production scale - by China and India.

Sarquis also explained that on an area of 170 million hectares planted with GMO, 10% is planted with soybean, 32% with corn, 14% with cotton, 5% with rape and the rest to other crops. Likewise, she revealed that 80 percent of the soybeans grown in the world are GMO seeds, while for corn the proportion is 35%; cotton (81%), and rape (30%) . Regarding oleaginous products, the official recalled that 65 percent of the exports come from countries which have approved regulatory frameworks regarding the use of GMOs. In this regard, Sarquis stressed the institutional importance of the transgenic related laws and/or resolutions approved by governments and ministries, such as in the case of Mercosur countries.

Finally, she explained the different stages that the development of GMO crops have experienced after 17 years of the first commercial planting of soybeans as they first acquired resistance to herbicides and insects and now they are in a transition to develop resistance to drought and increase yields. In the future it is expected for them to develop resistance to soil salinity, improve their nutritional quality, and be adaptable to the production of bioenergy. Starting on 2020, it is also expected the use of transgenic plants as factories for industrial technology, thus allowing the production of chemicals and even vaccines for human use.