**5. Worldwide production and consumption of genetically modified foods**

In 2019, According to ISAAA, 29 countries cultivated GM crops among which the USA is the largest producer of the GM crops covering 37.9% of the total GM crop area in the world [5]. USA has adopted the highest number of biotech crops (**Table 1**). Canada is another major GM crop grower that has reached 95% adoption rate of GM canola. In Latin America, 10 countries cultivate biotech crops, they are, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Columbia, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil. Brazil is the top biotech crop cultivator developing country. In Europe, only two countries adopted the cultivation of GM crop, Spain, and Portugal. These 2 countries only cultivate GM Maize. Whereas, in Africa, most of the countries cultivate GM cotton, like, Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Eswatini. South Africa cultivates three different GM crops, they are soybean, maize, and cotton. In Asia, Pakistan, India, Myanmar cultivates GM cotton. Bangladesh is the only country to cultivate BT Brinjal in the whole world. Indonesia only cultivates GM sugarcane, whereas Vietnam and Philippines are only focused on the cultivation of GM maize. China cultivates GM papaya and GM cotton. In Oceania, Australia is the only country to cultivate GM crops, like GM cotton, GM alfalfa and GM safflower. Australia is the exclusive grower


*Genetically Modified Food for Ensuring Food Security Issues DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106810*


## **Table 1.**

*List of GM crops grown in different countries with total biotech crop area [5].*

of the GM safflower. Since 1996, a total of 2.7 billion hectares of biotech crops are planted. In India, 6 million farmers planted Bt cotton in 11.9 million hectares in 2019. Malawi, Ethiopia, and Nigeria are comparatively new GM crop growers, started from 2019. Interestingly, Japan has approved the cultivation of GM crops, but they have not planted any yet [5]. The top 5 countries to plant biotech crops are USA- 71.5 million hectares (95% adoption), Brazil-52.8 million hectares (94% adoption), Argentina-24 million hectares (~100% adoption), Canada- 12.5 million hectares (90% adoption) and India −11.9 million hectares (94% adoption). According to the report of ISAAA in 2019, biotech soybean is the most cultivated GM crop with 48.2% coverage of the whole biotech crop land, followed by biotech maize (32%), biotech cotton (13.5%), Biotech canola (5.3%) and all other biotech crops cover around 1% of the total biotech crop land [20].
