JUST two years after allowing production of genetically modified canola, Australia is now ranked No.12 in the world for growing GM crops.
The latest figures from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications showed Australia grew 200,000ha of genetically modified cotton and corn in 2009, ranking it No.12 among the 25 countries growing GM crops around the world.
Most of Australia's GM crop is cotton, although canola is soon expected to overtake it.
While 200,000ha may be considered a large area, it pales into insignificance when compared with the world's leaders in growing GM crops: the US, Brazil and Argentina.
The US planted 64 million hectares of GM crops last year, mostly corn and soya beans, but it also included cotton, canola, sugar beet, squash, papaya and lucerne.
The US was followed by Brazil on 21.4 million hectares and Argentina planting 21.3 million hectares, both growing vast areas of soya beans, corn and cotton.
The GM cropping area in both Brazil and Argentina is equivalent to Australia's total winter crop plantings.
India and Canada ranked fourth and fifth in GM crop growing countries, planting 8.4 million hectares and 8.2 million hectares, respectively.
The ISAAA report showed that, globally, 25 countries planted 134 million hectares of GM crops.
This represented only 9 per cent of the total 1.5 billion hectares of land growing crops around the world.
Herbicide tolerant soya beans made up the largest GM crop, accounting for 69.2 million hectares or 52 per cent of global production.
"The growth rate between 1996 and 2009 was an unprecedented 79-fold increase, making it the fastest-adopted crop technology in recent history," the ISAAA said.
"This high adoption rate is a strong vote of confidence from millions of farmers who have made approximately 85 million individual decisions in 25 countries over a 14-year period to consistently continue to plant higher areas of biotech crops, year after year, after gaining first-hand insight and experience with biotech crops on their own or neighbours' fields."
The ISAAA said 70 per cent of processed food in the US and Canada contained approved GM ingredients.
It noted that a number of countries were working on GM wheat, identifying China, the US and Australia as world leaders in this area.
The first GM wheats were probably five to 10 years away from commercialisation, it reported.
