This paper is relevant to the impact areas in the following areas:
| Crops | Cotton, Maize, Oilseed Rape, Other, Papaya, Soybean |
| Traits | Herbicide Tolerance, Insect Res. (BT), Insect Resistance |
| Countries | Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Mexico, Other, Philippines, South Africa, US |
| Regions | Not region-specific |
| Tags | global benefits, global crops, global hectarage, global review, global traits |
Genetically modified (GM) crops have now been grown commercially on a substantial scale for ten years. This paper assesses the impact this technology is having on global agriculture from both economic and environmental perspectives. It examines specific global economic impacts on farm income and environmental impacts of the technology with respect to pesticide usage and greenhouse gas emissions for each of the countries where GM crops have been grown since 1996. The analysis shows that there have been substantial net economic benefits at the farm level amounting to $5 billion in 2005 and $ 27 billion for the ten year period. The technology has reduced pesticide spraying by 224 million kg (equivalent to about 40 percent of the annual volume of pesticide active ingredient applied to arable crops in the European Union) and as a result, decreased the environmental impact associated with pesticide use by more than 15 percent. GM technology has also significantly reduced the release of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, which, in 2005, was equivalent to removing 4 million cars from the roads.
Global Impact of Biotech Crops: Socio-Economic and Environmental Effects in the First Ten Years of Commercial Use. (held on an external server, and so may require additional authentication details)
CropLife International fully acknowledges the source and authors of the publication as detailed above.