AgbioInvestor’s free-to-access service AgbioInvestor GM Monitor has identified the following GM trait approvals up to November 2025. Expanded details on these recently approved traits, as well as for approvals dating back as far as 1992, can be found on AgbioInvestor’s GM Monitor website.

Cotton was one of the first GM crops to be granted cultivation approval, receiving it in the USA in 1994, and while GM cotton has high adoption rates of over 95% in some markets, such as the USA, India, Australia and China, new country markets are still emerging. In 2025, Uruguay alone granted 14 cultivation approvals, most of which are variations/recombination’s of GlyTol LibertyLink Twinlink Plus (COT102 x GHB119 x GHB614 x T304-40), a trait stack that was achieved through cross-hybridisation and selection involving transgenic donors. Prior to this, the only GM cotton Event approved for cultivation in Uruguay was GHB811, which received approval in 2023. Before the recent cultivation approvals, GM cotton was only grown for the purpose of seed production for export markets. The country currently commercially cultivates GM soybean and maize, which are grown on relatively small areas, 1.214 million hectares and 0.138 million hectares respectively. However, these regulatory changes would appear to signify that Uruguay has the potential to begin commercially cultivating GM cotton in the next few years.

In addition to the cultivation approvals Uruguay received three food/feed approvals in 2025 for COT102, COT102 x GHB119 x GHB614 x T304-40 and COT102 x GHB119 x GHB811 x T304-40, which grants these three events import approval for direct consumption or processing, which indicates that GM cotton will have some domestic end uses within the country and not be grown solely for export markets.

GM cotton was cultivated on 24.2 million hectares in 2024, approximately 80% of the total cotton area, with the USA, India and Brazil being the three most valuable GM cotton seed markets. In terms of area, Asia is the largest regional GM cotton seed market, followed by North America, South America, ROW and Europe.