Have farmers adopted new crop varieties developed using biotechnology?
Yes. Farmers have embraced crops enhanced through biotechnology because they provide value and solve real, sometimes previously intractable, problems. U.S. farmers, in particular, have taken advantage of this new technology. USDA has estimated that in 2004, 45 percent of the corn (36.4 million acres), 76 percent of the cotton (10.4 million acres), and 85 percent of the soybeans (63.5 million acres) planted were biotech varieties. This is a remarkable level of market penetration considering that these crops were only introduced in the mid-1990s. Today, about 60 to 70 percent of the processed foods available in U.S. grocery stores contain some ingredients or oils derived from biotech crops.
