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According to a USDA survey, after six years of steadily increasing amounts of GE crops in the US, results of a Department of Agriculture survey released on 24th of March reveal that farmers bought significantly less GE seed this year than last.
There is 24% less acreage of GE corn than last year. 19% of the US’s 77.9 million acreage of corn have been planted with the genetically engineered Bt variety, down from 25% percent in 1999. US farmers have seen prices for GE corn drop and $200 million of corn exports to Europe because of EU restrictions on GE corn imports.
The US plants 74.9 million acres of soybeans; herbicide resistant soybean acreage is expected to be down from 57% last year to 52% (this includes a small amount sown to Dupont’s conventionally bred STS soybeans). Plantings of biotech cotton are also down from 55% percent last year to 48%.
This is despite Monsanto lowering the price of GE seed. All the biotech companies have been claiming that this year’s sales of GE seeds have been remained the same as 1999 or have risen, this is clearly untrue.