Question
Answer
Expert response from Hope Hart
Foresight and Advocacy Lead, Global Seeds Product Safety, Syngenta
Friday, 23/01/2015 12:53
Farmers need every tool available to them to increase crop production using limited natural resources to meet the growing demand for food, feed, fiber and fuel as the global population rises. Plant biotechnology can improve crop productivity and yields, and improve the quality of crops, while reducing the environmental impact of their production, making them more sustainable. Further, biotechnology is helping improve nutrition and other consumer-desired characteristics in some crops, and improving certain manufacturing processes in others.
Even with modern crop protection products such as pesticides, around a third of all harvests are lost to insect pests, weeds and diseases, not to mention adverse weather. Biotechnology helps growers achieve consistently high yields by reducing susceptibility of crops to insect attacks, or using herbicides to control weeds more effectively. Genetically modified (GM) crops have enabled a 30% rise in corn yields in the U.S. The latest products are being developed to enable growers to respond to the effects of climate change such as drought and increasingly salty conditions.
The benefits that genetic engineering and other biotechnologies can provide should be available to growers and consumers for the benefits they can provide. These crop varieties continue to be the most heavily tested and regulated in the food sector. As an industry, we support this approach as it demonstrates that GM products are as safe as conventional varieties.