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In 2008, genetically modified crops were cultivated on 800 million hectares in 25 countries
(15 developing and 10 developed countries). Herbicide tolerant soybeans are the major
genetically modified crop, occupying 53 percent of the totally area under genetically modified
crops, followed by maize (30 percent), cotton (12 percent) and canola (5 percent). So far, the
acceptability of transgenic crops continues to be controversial in many societies, including
those of developing countries. In others, the related trade risks are considered too high. To
date, many developing countries do not have the technical and regulatory capacity to assess
the benefits and costs of modern biotechnology in their domestic agriculture and eventually to
monitor the inclusion of transgenic crops in their agriculture. However, some major
developing countries (China, Brazil, India) have been making great strides in agricultural
R&D.
Spreading knowledge, skills and technology is a major challenge. In many countries,
extension services have been cut, in others the knowledge base and extension services have
been hard hit by HIV-AIDS. Agricultural extension programmes are meant to ensure that
information on new technologies, plant varieties and cultural practices reaches farmers. In
many regions of the developing world, women form the majority of farmers, which means
particular efforts need to be made to factor the needs of women into dissemination and
capacity development programmes. However, in the developing world it is common practice
to direct extension and training services primarily toward men. A recent FAO survey showed
that female farmers receive only five percent of all agricultural extension services worldwide
and that only 15 percent of the world's extension agents are women. Policies have been based
on the assumption - proved wrong by studies - that information conveyed to the male head of
a household would be passed on to its female members. Apart from extension services,
Farmer Field Schools are proving an effective means to spread knowledge, while information
and communication technologies (ICTs) also look very promising tools for information
dissemination.
3.3 Trade, markets and support to farmers
The recent world food crisis of 2007-2008 provided a clear reminder that the global food and
agricultural system, including current national agricultural trade policies and world trade
rules, is highly vulnerable. The risks associated with this vulnerability and with the
realistic possibility of a re-occurrence of extraordinary price spikes and scarcity on
world markets necessitate, inter alia, a reconsideration of the factors that drive long-term
agricultural trade, including a possible reform of the global agricultural trade rules.
As is well known, real world market prices of major cereals, oilseeds, vegetable oils and
livestock products had been on a declining trend over the past 30 to 40 years. However, the
rate of decline had slowed, and not just recently, but since the early 1990s. In fact, a number
of factors seem to have gradually created a situation of tightly balanced supply and
demand: growing world demand, especially in developing countries, for basic food as well as
high value commodities; slowing rates of productivity growth; rising energy prices and
conversion of agricultural feedstock into biofuels. Under such tightening conditions, it may
take just a single shock such as a crop shortfall, commodity speculation or a short-term energy
price increase to create a major price spike. The recent spike involved all three and was
further aggravated by policies such as export restrictions or bans, through which various
countries tried to keep their domestic prices low in favour of their own consumers.