**4.1 Cereal crops**

Some important cereal crops such as maize, rice and wheat are approved for their commercial traits. Maize is the second most cultivated GM crop in the world and USA is the major cultivator and producer of GM corns. Maize has been genetically modified mainly for herbicide tolerance and insect resistance. Several commercial GM corns are stacked with the aforementioned traits, for instance, Agrisure® Duracade™ 5222 by Syngenta. Few are modified for better quality, such as, Enogen™, that contains a synthetic gene derived from *Thermococcales* spp.

Like maize, rice has also been genetically modified for herbicide tolerance and insect resistance. Liberty Link™ rice developed by Bayer Crop Science is a herbicide tolerance variety containing a gene (*bar*) from *Streptomyces hygroscopicus.* It was first approved in the USA in 2000 and later on other countries have also approved. Till date, 9 more countries including Canada, Argentina, Australia, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia and South Africa have approved this GM rice. The commercially available insect tolerant GM rice is BT Shanyou 63 that was only approved by China in 2009. Another GM rice of similar trait is Huahui-1 that was approved in the USA in 2018. The most famous GM rice would be the Golden Rice. It is adopted for cultivation in Philippines in 2018, however, in 2017-2018, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have also approved this as food and feed.

Roundup Ready™ wheat, a glyphosate herbicide resistant variety is the only GM wheat in the world developed by Monsanto Company. Initially, in 2004, 4 countries including Australia, Colombia, New Zealand, and the United States approved this for direct use and processing as food, however, Monsanto reportedly stopped pursuing the regulatory process and other countries also have withdrawn.
