52.5 million hectares of transgenic crops will be planted in Brazil in this 2016/17 harvest, including soybeans, corn (summer and winter) and cotton. This is what the report “2nd survey of the adoption of agricultural biotechnology in Brazil” points out, released by Consultoria Céleres on December 9th. The adoption of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) should maintain practically the same number as in the previous report, with 93.4% of the total sown area.
According to Céleres, the event (RI/TH) will reach 32.0 million hectares, adding the three crops analyzed, representing an adoption rate of 65.1%. This technology will tend to be increasingly dominant among current cultures. The number of approved technologies with combined genes reached 27 (46.5% of the total), just one for soybean, 22 for corn and 12 for cotton.
“In total, there are 58 events approved for commercialization (eight insect resistant, 19 herbicide tolerant, 27 with combined genes, one disease resistant, one for increasing productivity, one for increasing industrial yield and one tolerant to water stress) . It is worth remembering that in October, CTNBio, for the first time, approved for import purposes (and not cultivation), three genetically modified corn events – one tolerant to the herbicide glyphosate, one tolerant to water stress and another for industrial purposes, promoting the increased yield for ethanol production. Such events were approved as an exception, to meet the demand for cereal this year”, points out the Consultancy.
Stack soy, which has only one event approved so far, is the most cultivated technology in the country, with 20.2 million hectares in the 2016/17 harvest. “As noted in the previous report, the benefits for soybean farmers are clear, both in the economic aspect and in the improvement of management and ease of production. However, productivity has not yet reached its full potential, remaining similar to TH technology”, explains Céleres.
The area with transgenic soybean cultivars will be maintained at 32.7 million hectares indicated in the previous report. Corn (summer + winter) will continue in second position, reaching 15.7 million hectares. Genetically modified winter corn will reach 91.8% of the total sown area, or 10.4 million hectares. The RI/TH events will reach 7.1 million hectares (but with the same previous adoption rate of 62.4%).
In the case of summer corn, figures from the second survey of the 2016/17 harvest show a total of 5.3 million hectares, or 82.3% of adoption. “It is worth remembering that the adoption of summer corn will probably remain at this rate, as the adoption of the transgenic product in the central-south region (where the concentration of medium to high technology farmers is greater) has already reached its limit, with 95.5%. In addition, for the North and Northeast regions (where the use of technology is still low), the prospect of increased adoption is low (around 61.1%)”, points out the survey.
Source: Agrolink
