Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Data Page
  • Published:

13.3 million farmers cultivate GM crops

Nature Biotechnology volume 27, page 221 (2009)Cite this article

Last year 13.3 million farmers in 25 countries planted transgenic crops, over 90% of them in developing nations. It was also the year the second billionth acre of transgenic crop was planted—only 3 years after the first billionth acre was achieved. In Canada and the US, Monsanto (St. Louis) successfully introduced a new biotech crop, glyphosate-resistant sugar beet. Latin America, India and China continued to rapidly adopt GM varieties; 7 of 27 European Union countries cultivated the only transgenic crop approved there (Bt maize); France illegally froze its commercial plantings. Stacked traits continue to rise in popularity.

Historical global area of transgenic crops

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Andrew Marshall is Editor, Nature Biotechnology,

    Andrew Marshall

Authors
  1. Andrew Marshall
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Marshall, A. 13.3 million farmers cultivate GM crops. Nat Biotechnol 27, 221 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0309-221

Download citation

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0309-221

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing