GM crops: global socio-economic and environmental impacts 1996- 2009

Brookes G, Barfoot P (2011). PG Economics Ltd, UK.

This paper is relevant to the Agronomic, Socio-Economic, Environmental, and Overview Documents categories in the following areas:

Crops:	Sugar Beet, Maize, Cotton, Potato, Soybean, Oilseed Rape, Papaya, and Other
Traits:	Insect Resistance, Herbicide Tolerance, Virus Resistance, Fungal Resistance, Other, and Insect Res. (BT)
Countries:	Global
Regions:	EU, Middle East, South America, North America, Europe, Australia / NZ, Asia, and Africa
ImpactAreas:	Agronomic, Socio-Economic, and Environmental

Some of the key highlights from the report are:

Biotech crops have contributed to significantly reducing the release of greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural practices - in 2009, this was equivalent to removing 17.7 billion kg of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or equal to removing 7.8 million cars from the road for one year;

Biotech crops have reduced pesticide spraying (1996-2009) by 393 million kg (-8.7%) and as a result decreased the environmental impact associated with herbicide and insecticide use on the area planted to biotech crops by 17.1%;

There have been substantial net economic benefits at the farm level amounting to $10.8 billion in 2009 and $64.7 billion for the fourteen year period.

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CropLife International fully acknowledges the source and authors of the publication as detailed above.