Print This PageBiotech Seeds Reduce Pesticides, Cut Emissions Producing Big Environmental Benefits
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Sustainability Management 2009
Monsanto Mississippi River Partnership Project
Monsanto and CI Partner to Conserve Biodiversity
Biotech Soybeans Spur No-Till Farming in U.S.
Biotech Seeds Reduce Pesticides, Cut Emissions
Improve Farmers' Lives
Increasing incomes and standards of living.
Canadian canola and soybean grower Art Enns understands the delicate balance farmers must achieve as they seek to boost yields and also protect the precious natural resources critical to their success. Biotech seeds are one of the more important tools farmers use today to produce more crops, while reducing demand on vital land, energy and water resources.
Since 1996, biotech crops have contributed to a significant reduction in both pesticide applications and greenhouse gas emissions, maintains Graham Brookes, author of a new peer-reviewed study published in June 2008 in AgBioForum.
The study found that in countries where farmers plant biotech soy, corn, cotton or canola, pesticide use has fallen by 286 million kg, or 7.9 percent. The reductions come from herbicide-tolerant traits and insect-protection traits that reduce the number of pesticide applications required by farmers to grow their crops.
"So now, with the new biotechnology, we've been able to reduce our spraying — a lot of times just to one pass," says farmer Ens. "Yes, it does save us some money. But for me, it just means less application of chemicals."
Fewer pesticide applications translate into reduced consumption of fossil fuels as farmers make fewer passes over their fields. In addition, biotechnology enables farmers to adopt new conservation tillage practices, resulting in less fuel consumed during plowing and cultivating.
Little biotech seeds are proving to be a big positive for the environment. Burning less fossil fuel has reduced carbon dioxide greenhouse-gas emissions by the equivalent of removing 6.56 million cars from the road for an entire year.
For Ens, conservation lies at the heart of the farmer way-of-life: "[Biotechnology] gives you the independence of being kind of stewards of the land... not only taking out of the land, but providing that the next generations will also have a future in farming."
