Year 2000 data are the latest available.

Hautea, based in the Philippines, is global coordinator and director of the Southeast Asian centre of ISAAA, a non-profit making organisation to fight hunger and poverty in developing countries through sharing crop biotechnology applications.

The agriculture scientist said China, the first country in the world to commercialise GM technology in early 1990s, had seen a rapid growth in the acreage for GM cotton from 60,000-65,000 hectares in 1998 and 245,000 hectares in 1999.

The transgenic BT cotton contains the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis proteins and is resistant to corn borers, bollworms and other pests that damage cotton plants. He said the varieties of BT cotton, developed by China and by Monsanto Co , had led to a large reduction in the use of pesticides and production costs. Pesticide poisoning had also been reduced.

Additional financial benefits per farmer ranged from $185 to $400 or more, he calculated. It also showed small-scale farmers benefitted more from the BT technology than larger farmers.

WORLD GM ACREAGE UP 10 PCT

Land devoted globally to GM crops, including soybeans, corn, cotton and canola, was growing by 10 percent or more in the current year, and involved more than five million farmers, Clive James, chairman of ISAAA board of directors, said.

James, speaking from New York, said land use expanded 11 percent to 45 million hectares in 2000. Developing countries in the south accounted for 84 percent of the growth in the year, he said.

Of the total 2000 GM acreage, 58 percent was planted with soybeans, 23 percent with corn, 12 percent with cotton and seven percent with canola, he said.

Herbicide tolerant crops accounted for 74 percent, insecticide resistant crops for 19 percent and the rest was crops with both characteristics.

He also said independent studies in 1999 estimated economic advantages from BT crops totalled $700 million, which had been shared by two million farmers. It included some $140 million for BT cotton farmers in China.

Asked about the impact of China's new rules on GM crops which require safety certificates for trade, production and sales, he said: "I am not aware of any new regulation that will affect the current programme in terms of BT cotton.