Soybeans (1/10)
GM production area 2008: 65.8 million hectares
Share of production 2008: 70%
A Romanian farmer shows genetically modified soybeans. Romania is the sole producer of GM soybeans on the continent with about 35,000 hectares under cultivation.
Worldwide, Soybeans are the most common GM crop, accounting for over half of all GM crops. Some 70 percent of the world’s soybean production is genetically modified, most of it being produced in the U.S. for export or as food for livestock. All commercialized GM-soybeans are herbicide resistant. (Photo: Reuters)
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GMO Crops Worldwide
Corn/Maize (2/10)
GM production area 2008: 37.3 million hectares
Share of production 2008: 24%
A Mexican farmer cuts genetically modified corn in Capulalpan. Growing transgenic corn has been illegal in Mexico since 1998, but farmers say they received GM-corn from a government program.
Corn is the second most important GM-crop worldwide groing in 18 countries. GM-corn includes insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant varieties. Unlike soybean, some GM corn has both modifications “stacked” together. (Photo: Reuters)
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GMO Crops Worldwide
Cotton (3/10)
GM production area 2008: 15.5 million hectares
Share of production 2008: 46%
A South African cotton farmer shows off a genetically engineered cotton plant. Some 90 percent of the 3,000 small-scale cotton farmers in the area use the insect-resistant Bt cotton variety. The GM cotton is resistant to the cotton bollworm pest, because it produces a naturally-occurring pesticide.
About 95 percent of the 13.3 million GM farmers grow cotton in China or India. The University of California in San Diego estimated that Bt cotton reduced the cost for pesticides by 25 dollars to 65 dollars per acre, while increasing yields by 5 percent. (Photo: Reuters)
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GMO Crops Worldwide
Canola/Rapeseed (4/10)
GM production area 2008: 5.9 million hectares
Share of production 2008: 20%
French farm workers leader and anti-GM activist Jose Bove cuts GM canola in a field near the town of Belpuech.
Canola is fourth in the world league of GM crops. All genetically modified varieties are herbicide resistant. The crop is mainly used for biofuel production. Countries growing it commercially are Australia, the United States, and Canada. (Photo: Reuters)
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GMO Crops Worldwide
Golden Rice (5/10)
GM production worldwide 2008: experimental.
Share of production 2008: n.a.
Genetically modified Golden Rice is growing at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Banos, Manila. Golden Rice has been developed by Swiss scientists to fight Vitamin A deficiency. The rice contains a gene that allows the plant to produce beta-carotene, a precursor of Vitamin-A.
Golden Rice’s creators say that it could prevent a high percentage of an estimated 1 to 2 million deaths caused by Vitamin A deficiency annually. Golden rice was meant to be a humanitarian tool, but is not yet available for consumption due to widespread criticism of GM foods. (Photo: Reuters)
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GMO Crops Worldwide
Papaya (6/10)
GM production area 2008: 6,500 hectares.
Share of production 2008: n.a.
Greenpeace activists dump thousands of papayas in front of Thailand's Department of Agriculture in Bangkok. The protests were incited by the spread of illegal GM papaya in Thailand.
Since 1998, GM papayas resistant to the ringspot virus have been cultivated in Hawaii and China. Critics say the protein used to make papayas virus-resistant is a potential allergen. (Photo: Reuters)
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GMO Crops Worldwide
Cowpea (7/10)
GM production worldwide 2008: experimental
Share of production 2008: n.a.
A researcher in the biotechnology laboratory of the Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) isolates genes from the protein-rich cowpea plant. Projects to further enhance their nutritional content are underway in Africa.
So far, no major African food crop has received GM modification. Researchers at the IITA estimate, however, that biotechnology could help make Africa self-sufficient within 10 years. (Photo: Reuters)
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GMO Crops Worldwide
Alfalfa (8/10)
GM production area 2008: 100,000 hectares
Share of production 2008: n.a.
A worker collects alfalfa at Cuatro Cienegas, Mexico. Alfalfa is mostly used as cattle feed in the form of dry hay.
Herbicide tolerant GM alfalfa was commercialized in the United States from 2005 to 2007 but has been suspended pending an environmental impact statement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Critics argue that it will be impossible to separate GM and non-GM alfalfa, because the crop is pollinated by bees with a flying range of up to four miles. (Photo: Reuters)
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GMO Crops Worldwide
HoneySweet Plums (9/10)
GM production area 2008: experimental
Share of production 2008: n.a.
GM plums grown in an experimental planting in the U.S. The plums are highly resistant to the Plum pox virus. Plum pox is not yet a problem in the U.S., but all plum varieties grown in the U.S. are susceptible to the virus. The U.S. Department of Agriculture considers this GM-variety as a last resort solution in case the Plum pox becomes endemic. (Photo: Scott Bauer, USDA)
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GMO Crops Worldwide
Late Blight Resistant Potatoes (10/10)
GM production area 2008: experimental
Share of production 2008: n.a.
Green tomatoes affected by late blight, which caused the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and 1850s. The fungus is killing potato and tomato plants in home gardens from Maine to Ohio and threatening commercial and organic farms.
The disease is currently staging a comeback with more aggressive strains than during the original outbreak 150 years ago. Researchers at Cornell University have developed GM-potatoes and GM-tomatoes resistant to the fungus. (Photo: Reuters)
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Genetic Innovation
Protection against Pests (1/10)
The caterpillar of the cotton bollworm moth sits on the thumb of a technician in a laboratory in Melbourne in 2008.
Unlocking the genetic secrets of the world's worst agricultural pest, which is resistant to nearly every class of chemical pesticide, could lead to new ways of controlling the bollworm moth that causes 5 billion dollars of damage to crops around the world. Researchers are now working to sequence its genome. (Photo: Reuters)
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Genetic Innovation
Gene Banking (2/10)
Quechua Indian farmers display native potatoes at the International Potato Center (CIP) experimental station in the village of Aymara in the Andean highlands.
The CIP conserves genetic samples of most of the potatoes native to Peru, the birthplace of the potato with more than three thousand varieties. Most of the varieties cannot be grown outside the Andes due to the region's particular climatic and ecological conditions. Gene banks maintain the genetic diversity of foods and provide raw materials for food researchers. (Photo: Reuters)
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Genetic Innovation
Make Meat Healthier (3/10)
Two genetically altered piglets stand with a normal piglet (left) at the University of Missouri-Columbia in Columbia, Missouri.
U.S. scientists genetically engineered pigs that make beneficial fatty acids and may one day serve as a healthier source of pork chops or bacon. The pigs produced omega-3 fatty acids, compounds that have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease in people. (Photo: Reuters)
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Genetic Innovation
Food from Clones (4/10)
Gloria, the first calf born to a cloned cow, Vitoria, is seen on a government farm outside Brasilia in 2004. The food safety authorities in the U.S., Japan and Europe have ruled that milk and meat from some cloned animals like cattle and pigs are safe to eat.
However, as yet they have not approved the sale of food made from cloned animals, and although it may happen in the coming years the absence of any compelling benefit for the consumer is said to be holding things back. (Photo: Reuters)
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Genetic Innovation
Stem Cell Research (5/10)
Smooth muscle cells derived from human embryonic stem cells showing the nuclei (blue) and proteins of the cytoskeleton (green). These cells could one day be used to replace smooth muscle of the blood vessels, bladder, intestines, or uterus. Stem cell research is directed towards treating many human diseases although human embryonic stem cell research remains controversial. (Photo: Reuters)
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Genetic Innovation
Artificial Blood (6/10)
Dr Claude Bagnis, head of the molecular haematology lab at the French Blood Institution displays a tube as he collects gene transfer vectors in his laboratory in Marseille in 2009. Dr Bagnis and his team have successfully genetically modified human red blood cells which could lead the way to creating samples of rare blood artificially. (Photo: Reuters)
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Genetic Innovation
Vaccine Production (7/10)
Dr. Jim Robertson, principal scientist at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), holds up an egg to be used to grow the H5N1 vaccine strain at his laboratory in southern England. The NIBSC is making use of the process of reverse genetics to create designer strains of the influenza virus suitable for vaccine manufacture. (Photo: Reuters)
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Genetic Innovation
Animal Organ Donors (8/10)
Five "knock-out" female piglets that are, according to Scottish firm PPL Therapeutics, a major step towards successfully producing animal organs and cells for use in human transplants.
A so-called knock-out pig has one gene inactivated, which would normally lead the human immune system to reject pig organs. PPL said this should enable organs and cells from such animals to be transplanted into humans and not be rejected. (Photo: Reuters)
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Genetic Innovation
Crime Fighting (9/10)
A volunteer takes a saliva sample in a police station in the eastern German town of Eberswalde.
Genetic fingerprinting and DNA analysis have revolutionized policing across the world. Now, traces of DNA found in blood, skin, hair, sweat and other secretions can be tested and logged into databases, enabling police to better identify suspects, and pinpoint who was at a crime scene. (Photo: Reuters)
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Genetic Innovation
Insulin from Bacteria (10/10)
Escherichia coli bacteria grown in culture and seen through an electron micrograph. A genetically manipulated strain of the bacterium is used to produce human insulin.
Insulin is the only known treatment for millions of diabetes patients. Before the advent of genetic engineering, patients had to use insulin from the pancreas of dead pigs and cows, which occasionally led to allergic reactions. Scientific studies have shown that insulin from bacteria is indistinguishable from normal human insulin. (Photo: Reuters)
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Humans have altered nature for thousands of years. Farmers have trimmed weeds into ever more productive grains and bred bigger, tastier animals. Is genetic engineering only the next evolutionary step or a step too far?
Little is known about the long-term impacts of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Allianz expert Johannes Klose talks about the risks and opportunities.
GM plants feed the world’s livestock, its cotton mills, and its biofuels industry. People, however, prefer conventional crops. Will food shortages change their minds?
