Gene-altered corn plantings will increase by nearly 10 percent in 2003.

U.S. farmers are largely in favor of planting biotech corn despite opposition from customers such as the European Union and Japan, according to a poll conducted at the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual meeting. Consumers from opposing countries have voiced concerns over the long-term health and environmental impacts of such crops.

Plantings of Roundup Ready corn, which is altered so that farmers can use a single weed killer on the crops, will increase by about 10 percent in 2003, while Roundup Ready soybeans will increase more than eight percent, according to a survey of growers at the meeting. Gene-altered cotton plantings will increase by four percent in 2003.

Overall, biotech plantings across all U.S. crops will rise by 2.3 percent, according to a survey of farmers. In 2002, 34 percent of corn was gene-altered, up eight percent from the previous year, and biotech soybeans made up 75 percent of all U.S. soybean crops, up seven percent from the previous year, according to U.S. Agriculture Department data.

Biotech cotton made up 71 percent of the U.S. crop in 2002, compared with 69 percent in 2001, according to the USDA.