Raising Yields to Protect Habitats

February 20, 2013
Food Security  Investment & Innovation  Land Use & Biodiversity 

Crop protection products and higher-yielding biotech varieties…help take the pressure off of the need to convert natural habitats into more farmland.

Using crop protection products and higher-yielding biotech varieties, farmers are now growing more food on each hectare of land. This helps take the pressure off of the need to convert natural habitats into more farmland. For instance, if the world’s farmers continued to grow crops at 1961 crop production levels, almost a billion hectares of new farmland would be required today to maintain food supplies – that’s more than the total land area of the United States.