blog

Adding to the Global Food Supply

June 06, 2010

Be the first to comment

Read about biotech's role in increasing food production for the growing global population.

By Produce More Conserve More

Farmers Jesus Gavino of the Philippines and Gordon Wassenaar of the U.S. have more in common than just love for their land. Though they labor worlds apart, they’re both playing a critical role in boosting global agricultural supply, in part because of their use of biotech seeds.

“Biotech is really important because it has benefited us with bigger harvests,” said Gavino. “With bigger harvests, we get higher incomes.”

Now a new European study demonstrates that these farmers’ experiences are playing out in fields around the world. It notes that biotech traits added more than 100 million tons to global agricultural production between 1996 and 2006, increasing farmer incomes by $33.8 billion.

Farmer in corn field

What does 100 million tons of global agriculture production represent? Study author Graham Brookes of PG Economics suggests thinking of it in terms of meals – or enough food to feed 310 million people for a year.

Brookes’ research found that between 1996, when biotechnology was first introduced, to 2006, biotech traits have added about 53.3 million tons of soybeans and 47.1 million tons of corn to worldwide agricultural production. That’s an increase of 5 percent and 1.4 percent respectively from the production achieved without biotechnology. While the percentage increases might seem small, the difference in output is enormous, given the immense size of global agricultural production.

Interestingly, the study also revealed that biotech’s benefits to crop yields are most pronounced in countries where good insect and weed controls aren’t yet part of agronomic practice. In Romania, for example, herbicide-tolerant soybeans improved yield more than 31 percent. Better weed control from biotech traits also has improved growing conditions in some South American countries, enabling them to grow a second soybean crop in the same growing season.

Farmer Wassenaar sees hope for a hungry world: “Most people in the world have to worry about feeding their families and their future generation. I just don’t think the old conventional way of farming is going to do it.”

Start a discussion

Related content