Mumbai: India has overtaken the US to become the world's second largest cotton producing country after China, according to study on the commercalisation of agri-biotech.

India, which had one of the lowest cotton yields in the world, has become a net cotton exporter, potentially five million bales in 2007-08, the study by International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application (ISAAA) said.

This has been made possible by the large-scale cultivation of biotch/gene modified cotton. Cotton production has gone up from 15.8 million bales in 2001-02 to 31 million bales in 2007-08, it said.

This has also boosted income of growers in India by up to Rs10,000 or more per hectare.

C P Thiagarajan, a former professor of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, who released the brief of global status of commercialised Bt/gm crops: 2007, said India experienced the highest proportional increase in 2007 for the third consecutive year with a 63 per cent gain to 6.2 million hectare of BT cotton.

The studies have shown strong farmer confidence in the crops with nine of 10 Indian farmers replanting biotech cotton year on year, ISAAA said.

On the global scenario, the study said that the US, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, India and China continued to be the principal adopters of biotech crops.

While the US continued to be the largest user of the technology, its biotech crop area represented a declining share of the global area due to a broadening adoption, Thiagarajan said.

According to study, Burkina Faso, Egypt and possibly Vietnam would be the next most likely countries to approve the crops, while Australia is engaged in the field-testing of drought-tolerant wheat.