Agricultural use of genetically modified crops across the world has increased almost 70-fold in the past 10 years, breaking the 100m-hectare mark, and is set to double by 2015, according to a study released today.

The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application, a non-profit organisation, estimates that GM crops were last year planted on 114m hectares (282m acres) worldwide by more than 12m farmers, a 12 per cent increase on the previous year.