Brazil is on course to dislodge the United States as the world's top producer of biotech crops in the coming years, a leading promoter of farm biotechnology said Tuesday.

The US currently holds the lead with 69 million hectares (170 million acres) under biocrop cultivation in 2011, ahead of Brazil with 30.3 million, Argentina with 23.7 million and India with 10.6 million, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) said.

But USAAA, a government-funded international body promoting the use of farm biotechnology, particularly in developing countries, said Brazil was last year the engine of global biocrop growth, with 4.9 more million hectares, up 20 percent from 2010.

Speaking in a teleconference from the Philippines, ISAAA President Clive James said that while the United States was currently well ahead, "Brazil is closing the gap very quickly" and bringing in new biocrops like sugar cane.

Brazil has eight million hectares of sugar, the largest hectareage in the world, and is expected to increase it by 50 percent in the next five years for both ethanol and sugar production, he noted.