Plant biotechnology and its commercialisation is in its blooming phase. In 1998, more than 28 million hectares of transgenic crop plants were grown worldwide. 'This 28 mil lion hectares was spread over several countries, the largest area of transgenic crops b'eing grown in the USA (22 mil lion hectares) followed by Canada (1.8 million hectares), Argentina (1.8 million hectares) and the Peoples Republic of China (estimated at 1.1 million hectares ). Equally impressive as the total area of transgenic crops planted is the market share individual crops have gained. Thus, it is estimated that in 1998 in the ITS 40% of the cotton, 24% of corn and 40% of soybean planted was transgenic. This is an absolutely dramatic figure considering the fact that the commercialisation phase of transgenic crops in the US started no earlier than 1996, at that time the total acreage being about 1.5 million hectares. Thus, in only two years the transgenic crops of three of the most important US crops (i.e. corn, soybean :and cotton) conquered a market share of more than 30% starting from virtually zero. This is by all means a truly breathtaking development.This dramatic change in the corresponding markets becomes even more impressive upon realising that the dri ving forces behind this revolution are essentially only two classes of genes. One class confers resistance to herbicides, such as glyphosate or liberty, the second class confers resis tance to the larvae of certain detrimental insects.Such a dramatic change of existing markets has had a bearing on the structure of the industry. Firstly, due to the fact that transgenic herbicideresistant plants allow the farmer to evaluate the weed pressure before he decides to use the herbicide, the total amount of herbi cide applied in cases where transgenic crops are planted is reduced by on average 3040%. Secondly, market shares in the herbicide market are changing from species specific (selective) herbicides towards broadspectrum herbicides with the subsequent consequences for the sales and profits of the corresponding industries. In the case of transgenic insectresistant plants, in an analogous way the amount of chemical insecticides used was reduced by up to 80% with the corresponding implica tions for the insecticideselling industries.