Record number of commercial approvals for GM crops in Argentina

Thirteen new genetically engineered (GE) events – one cotton, three soyabeans and nine corn – were approved in the period, the USDA’s 8 December “Argentina: Biotechnology and Other New Production Technologies Annual” said.

“Processing times seem to have improved, with a record number of commercial approvals for GM plants and an increased number of assessments involving micro-organisms,” the USDA said.

With approximately 25M ha of genetically engineered (GE) soyabeans, corn, cotton and wheat planted, Argentina is the third largest grower of GE crops in the world after the USA and Brazil, according to the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS)’s Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) report.

A total of 91 biotech crop events were approved for production and commercialisation, including: 25 soyabean events, 50 maize events, nine cotton events, two alfalfa events, one safflower event, two potato events and two wheat events.

Commercial adoption of GE crops started in the South American country in 1996 with the introduction of herbicide-tolerant soyabeans and, since then, there had been unprecedented growth in GE planted area, the report said.

To date, 100% of soyabeans, 99% of corn and 100% of cotton planted in Argentina are genetically engineered, according to USDA data.

GM soyabeans have been adopted at a high rate in Argentina and covered almost all the estimated 16.5M ha of soyabean planted area in the 2025/2026 marketing year.

In addition, new technological advances had led to increased second soyabean crop planting -allowing soyabeans to be planted following wheat – in many areas where only one crop had been planted prior to the availability of GE varieties, the report said.

Following the introduction of glyphosate-tolerant soyabeans, an important technological leap in soyabean production took place in 2012 with the authorisation to commercialise soyabean seeds, products and by-products with stacked insect resistance (IR) and herbicide tolerance (HT).

Farmers in the northeastern region of Argentina had the highest adoption levels of stacked soyabean varieties, with adoption rates decreasing incrementally going from northern to southern Argentina.

The Argentine soyabean industry is almost entirely export oriented, according to the report.

In 2024/2025, 7.3M tonnes were exported as whole beans, 27M tonnes were crushed and exported as meal, and 5.3M tonnes as oil.

Argentina continued to be the largest exporter in the world of the soyabean complex including soyabeans, soyabean meal and soyabean oil, the report said.

Three new soyabean events were authorised in 2025: BASF Argentina’s BCS-GM151-6 x DAS-444Ø6-6; Corteva Seeds’ COR23134 and DBNBC Argentina’s DBN-Ø82Ø5-8.

Tags: soyabeans, genetically engineered, corn, Production, wheat, Argentina, cotton, genetically modified, plants