Question
What is the difference in crop yield for GMO and non-GMO soybeans?
What is the average crop yield for GMO and nonGMO soybeans in the USA?
Submitted by: Emma Grace
Answer
Expert response from Janet Carpenter
Owner, J E Carpenter Consulting LLC M.S. Agricultural and Resource Economics
Tuesday, 12/04/2016 15:34
The most recent data available from USDA on GM and non-GM soybean yields in the U.S. is from 2006, when GM herbicide tolerant soybean adopters were found to have a 3 percent yield advantage over non-adopters on average. (See 2014 USDA Economic Research Service Report, Genetically Engineered Crops in the United States.) However, it is important to keep in mind that average differences may be driven by other factors than the GM herbicide tolerance trait, such as other characteristics of the varieties being grown and/or management ability of farmers, etc., which may be systematically different between adopters and non-adopters. These types of systematic differences between adopters and non-adopters may lead to either over- or under-estimating the impact of GM herbicide tolerance alone when looking simply at average differences.
