Somewhere in the world, likely early this week, a farmer will plant the billionth cumulative acre of genetically altered crops, also known as biotech crops.

Though it has taken the past 10 years to achieve that milestone, at the present double-digit growth rate, it won’t be more than four years until the second billion acres of biotech crop plantings is reached, said Dean Kleckner, chairman of Truth About Trade & Technology, a Des Moines-based non-profit free-trade advocacy group.

When compared with now universal practices such as pasteurization, which took two generations to gain acceptance, “this technology is being adopted faster than any other technology has been in the history of agriculture,” said Kleckner, who owns a 350-acre farm near Rudd. “It’s moving forward quickly, despite groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth opposing it.”

Before becoming chairman of Truth About Trade, Kleckner served for 14 years as president of the American Farm Bureau Federation and for 10 years prior to that led the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation. He has also served as a member of U.S. Trade Advisory Committee under presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. In that role, he attended World Trade Organization meetings in Singapore, Brussels and Geneva.

Truth About Trade, formed five years ago by Kleckner and four other Iowa farmers largely in reaction to the protests by environmental groups to the 1999 WTO talks in Seattle, has since broadened its board membership to include eight farmers from throughout the country. The group says its weekly online electronic newsletter reaches an estimated 50,000 readers worldwide.

Truth About Trade is unique because it focuses on free-trade issues from a farmer’s perspective, said Mary Boote, the organization’s executive director.

“They felt there was a need for an organization that could put out that message,” she said. “And the American farmer/rancher has a high degree of credibility.”

Currently working with a $400,000 budget with funds raised through private contributions, the 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization advances its educational agenda through press releases, speaking engagements and its Web site, www.truthabouttrade.org, Boote said. In December, the organization hired a former American Farm Bureau Federation senior economist, Ross Korves, who produces a weekly two-page white paper on trade and biotech issues.

Among the issues the organization is currently focusing on is the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement that’s now being debated by Congress, as well as the ongoing refusal by European nations to accept imports of genetically altered food products.

Kleckner, who regularly speaks at forums across the country on trade and biotechnology issues, carries a message that free trade and biotech crops are beneficial, both for farmers, who can more easily sell their goods, and for consumers, who can buy food at reasonable prices. He estimates that about 70 percent of the food items carried in U.S. grocery stores now have some element of biotech in them.

According to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, approximately 200 million acres of biotech crops were planted in 17 countries last year. That figure should reach 375 million acres in 30 countries by 2010, say officials of that non-profit organization, which advocates making biotechnological advances in agriculture available to developing countries. Last year, global plantings of genetically altered seeds accounted for 56 percent of all soybeans, 21 percent of all cotton, 19 percent of all canola and 14 percent of all corn.

As a farmer who has raised soybeans, corn and hogs, Kleckner knows that the level of awareness of the importance of free trade and biotech crops isn’t as high among Iowa farmers as it is among leaders of farm groups.

“Up and down the gravel roads of rural Iowa, there’s not ignorance of trade issues, but the knowledge of those issues is not high,” he said. “It’s just so competitive in farming today, you really don’t have time to delve into the nuances of technology or trade.”

At the same time, most U.S. farm organizations throughout the country are on the same page as his group when it comes to trade, Kleckner said. “They want the trade issues to come to come to fruition, and for it to happen soon,” he said.

Although fear of the effect of genetically altered crops is the reason Europeans have refused to allow them to be imported or planted, the larger issue is the ongoing problem of tariffs, Kleckner said.

“The United States is a very open agriculture market for allowing products in,” he said. “We don’t employ a lot of barriers to trade, but other countries tend to put up these roadblocks. The average tariff on agriculture products coming into the United State is 12 percent on average, versus an average 50 percent for U.S. products being exported into other countries. So the deck is stacked against the United States.”

Truth About Trade believes that CAFTA would benefit most U.S. producers by increasing exports to Central America by an estimated $1.5 billion annually. However, the agreement is strongly opposed by groups such as the non-profit Americans for Fair Trade, which released survey results in March that indicated 51 percent of Americans polled oppose CAFTA, while only 32 percent support it. Also vocal in their opposition are sugar growers, who fear that lower-cost imports from Central America would hurt producers in the 18 states that grow the crop.

Kleckner’s organization also believes the spread of biotech crops to Europe is inevitable, despite opposition.

“I have many farming friends in Europe that want to use biotech there, but they can’t because the Green movement is very strong in Europe,” he said. “They tell me they’re becoming uncompetitive because they can’t use it. They say, ‘The people respect your government agencies and the work they’re doing (to test biotech crops prior to releasing them for use).’

“With China and India increasingly accepting biotech crops, I say to my friends in Europe, ‘You may not know it, but the (war against biotech crops) is lost when the two most populous countries in the world have adopted it.’”