“GMOs are not saving farmers money, they’re not producing higher yields, and perhaps most significantly they’re wrecking the environment and human health,” the anti-biotech outfit Natural News warned in December 2014. Such claims are recycled endlessly by environmental activists and widely circulated thanks to social media, but they are wholly unsupported by the evidence, according to a new report published by the The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).
As adoption of biotech crops continues to accelerate, the report notes, the environmental, health and economic benefits of that transition are difficult to deny. The infographic below provides a helpful illustration of the situation globally. Farmers have not only saved money thanks to genetic engineering, but earned an additional $150 billion since 1996.
Meanwhile, the technology has served as a bulwark against biodiversity loss and climate change, cutting fuel and pesticide use and allowing farmers to grow more food on fewer acres, a phenomenon known as land sparing. Reduced pesticide use also lowers farmer and consumer exposure to potentially harmful chemicals, and higher yields provide more food to alleviate hunger—a clear benefit to human health.
Read full, original report: Biotech Crops Continue to Help Meet the Challenges of Increased Population and Climate Change
