Australia

In 2010, Australia grew 653,000 hectares of biotech crops, comprising 520,000 hectares of biotech cotton, (up from 190,000 hectares in 2009), and 133,000 hectares of biotech canola (up more than three- fold from the 41,200 hectares in 2009).
The increase between 2009 and 2010 was 184% making it the biggest proportional increase in any country in the world in 2010. A remarkable 98.5% of all the cotton grown in Australia in 2010 was biotech and over 91% of it featured the stacked genes for insect resistance and herbicide tolerance.
The total biotech crop hectarage in 2010 represents almost a 14-fold increase over the 48,000 hectares of biotech crops in 2007 during which Australia suffered a very severe drought which continued in 2008 and to a lesser degree in 2009 when the country was still recovering from the multi-year drought which is the worst on record in Australia. Enhanced farm income from biotech crops is estimated at US$262 million for the period 1996 to 2009 and the benefits for 2009 alone at US$38 million.

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