Since the first year of commercial planting of biotech crops in 1996, more than 70 countries from all over the world have either planted or imported biotech crops. In 1996, the six founder biotech crop countries, the USA, China, Argentina, Canada, Australia, and Mexico, planted these crops in a total of 1.7 million hectares. In 2018, 70 countries adopted biotech crops – 26 countries planted and 44 imported. The total biotech crop area of 191.7 million hectares in 2018 was grown by 26 countries, 21 developing and 5 industrial countries. Also in 2018, 23 years after the initial planting, biotech crops increased ~113-fold with an accumulated global area of 2.5 billion hectares, making biotechnology the fastest adopted crop technology in the world.
