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Question

What percentage of sweet corn acreage in the United States is planed in Bt corn? This was asked in 2015, but has the percentage changed?

Submitted by: Dan Blaustein-Rejto


Answer

Expert response from Community Manager

Moderator for GMOAnswers.com

Monday, 29/01/2018 18:37

That’s actually a pretty difficult question to really pin down. As you say, this was asked in 2015, but we set out to find out if that number had changed at all. 

 

First we reached out to the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), a division of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). NASS tracks a wide range of agricultural products and demographics, but GMO sweet corn is not one of them. They do track field corn, and 92% of all field corn is genetically modified corn, according to the USDA’s most recent statistics.

 

So we reached out to the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), and they also primarily focus on field corn, not sweet corn. Here are some recent stories by the NCGA talking about biotech corn.

 

Finally, we reached out to the companies who sell sweet corn seeds. We asked them if the number that was provided in 2015 had changed, and the consensus that the number provided in 2015 was pretty accurate today as well. To remind you of the answer that was provided in 2015, it is listed below:

 

[O]ur best estimate is that in 2013, both Canadian and U.S. farmers chose to plant our companies’ insect-protected GM sweet-corn hybrids on a little less than 25 percent of the sweet-corn acres planted for fresh markets in both countries. However, if you take into account all of the sweet-corn acres planted (including acres for frozen, canned or processed sweet corn), the total percentage drops to approximately 10 percent in both countries."

So in short, no, that number has not changed. The number is about 25% of the acreage of sweet corn planted that gets eaten fresh, and down to about 10% when you include also sweet corn that ends up frozen, canned, or otherwise processed.