The ill effects of global warming is being reversed by the increasing area for genetically modified (GM) crops which have been contributing to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emission.
Crop science experts expressed full confidence in the contribution of GM crops in countering predicted increasing global temperature as a result of emission of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide.
GM herbicide resistant crops, for one, enable farmers’ omission of tilling of the soil. This prohibits emission of CO2 to the environment and enhances moisture in the soil.
Prevention of emission of CO2 also comes largely from non-razing of more forest lands for agricultural use.
Dr Wayne Parrott, a University of Georgia crop science expert said that global farmers have been able to triple cereal production from 650 million metric tons (MT) in 1950 to 1.9 billion MT in 2000.
This is without the need for more agricultural land due to higher yield from emerging farm technologies.
Despite the three times increase in production, land use over the 50-year period was about constant at 660 million hectares as of 2000. Farm technology spared the use of a vast tract of land which could amount to at least one billion hectares.
”Land not used for agriculture was 1.1 billion hectares. Since you save on land, you have more land for other uses,” said Parrott in a Bureau of Agricultural Research-sponsored biotechnology forum.
The GM Bacillus thuringiensis corn which is resistant to the pest Asiatic corn borer, for instance, may raise yield from the conventional five per MT per hectare to seven to eight MT.
Another substantial contributor to decreased CO2 emission is the elimination of pesticide spray since many GM crops like Bt corn have pest resistance. This consequently wipes out use of fuel for spraying.
London-based PG Economics estimated that decreased pesticide and fuel use from GM spared CO2 emission by a total of 17.7 billion kilos. This comes from the elimination of herbicide and insecticide use over the 17.1 percent of total agricultural area now planted to GM crops
The GM crop Roundup Ready, a corn resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide at least in the United States, enables farmers to obtain high yield from corn without needing to spend for labor cost for weeding.
More important, with this herbicide-resistant trait in the gene inserted in the corn, farmers do not need to till the soil. This restores moisture and stores up CO2 in the soil.
“GM officially started in 1996. Now we have 15.4 million farmers in 29 countries planting GM. If organic farmers will use GM, it will make their life easier because in the end organic and GM farming has the same goal of environmental sustainability,” said Parrott.
If GM was not used by 14 million farmers for from 1996 to 2009, PG Economics reported that farmers would have needed to plant on 3.8 million hectares more for soybeans, 5.6 million hectares more for corn, 2.6 million hectares more for cotton and 0.3 million hectares more for canola.
That in order to achieve these crops’ global production at the 2009 levels.
“This total area requirement is equivalent to about seven percent of the arable land in the US, or 24 percent of the arable land in Brazil,” reported PG Economics.
Parrott said farmers in the Philippines have become a global leader in GM planting.
“Philippines have been a leader in the region. It’s in the forefront. You have sensible, logical regulations that were put in place early. You have half a million hectares of GM corn this year, and no other country in the region has that,” Parrott said.
Its benefit to farmers in increased yield and income is big.
The farm level economic benefit of GM crops from 1996 to 2009 totalled to $64.7 billion.
This benefitted each and every individual farmer.
“For every dollar spent for GM, a farmer based on a study in Honduras gets $5.05,” said Parrott.
Countries are no longer food-secure without GM crops. Ninety-two percent of globally-traded soybean is now GM. This high saturation level is true also in GM corn which has achieved an 80 percent global trade level and in cotton, canola, and sugarbeet at 90 percent each.
Definitely a more important benefit of GM crops is on human health. Farmers’ unprotected spraying of pesticide is now a thing of the past.
Cancer-causing aflatoxin from corn mold and other toxins are eliminated with GM corn.
“After insects damage corn, fungus follows which has an effect of causing cancer, birth defects, and it depresses the immune system,” Parrott said.
But GM crops are saved from fungi infestation.
GM crops even cause a flourishing of biodiversity. The presence of beneficial insects has extensively been documented in farms planted to GM. On the other hand, pesticide-sprayed farms can never be found with beneficial insects as sprays are non-targeted to pests alone but kill all types of insects.
There is a misperception that “gene flow” from GM crops causes harm on conventional crops.
“Gene flow is the most misunderstood of all. People ask, will the genetically engineered plant cross with other plants? The question to ask is, ‘Will there be negative consequence’? It doesn’t mean just because there’s gene flow, there’s negative consequence, he said.
“Maize production (of different varieties) near San andres, Xeoul, Guatemala have been crossing for centuries, but there’s no damage. Crossing is not automatically destructive,” Parrott said.
In the near future, Parrott said Philippines will have its own fruit and shoot borer (FSB)-resistant Bt eggplant which will spare more farmers from the use of pesticide spray for FSB.
More so, this is developed by Philippine state-owned Institute of Plant Breeding at the University of Los Banos.
Bt eggplant is wonderful example because it shows what a public institution can do for the benefit of the country. I think it’s now undergoing environmental safety testing,” he said.
