Benefits

Access the Benefits of Biotechnology database

For thousands of years, farmers have been using breeding techniques to genetically modify crops to improve quality and yield. Modern biotechnology allows plant breeders to select genes that produce beneficial traits and move them from one organism to another. Plant biotechnology is far more precise and selective than crossbreeding in producing desired agronomic traits. Learn more about the benefits and positive impacts of plant biotechnology in our updated Plant Biotech 101 handout.

Plant biotechnology has been adopted by farmers worldwide at rates never before seen by any other advances in the history of agriculture. According to the latest report from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), in 2019, biotech crops were grown by 17 million small farmers on 190.4 million hectares in 29 countries. The reason for such impressive adoption rates is simple — plant biotechnology delivers significant and tangible benefits, all the way from the farm to the fork. Learn more about these benefits in the video and infographic below.

For more information, please visit the GMO Answers website, an initiative committed to responding to your questions about how food is grown. Its goal is to make information about biotech crops in food and agriculture easier to access and understand.

Climate Change Contributions from Seed and Crop Technologies

Oct 17, 2022 -
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This report provides a summary of peer-reviewed literature for articles that provide evidence that innovations in plant breeding technologies and crop protection products, including biologicals, have contributed, or are contributing to climate change mitigation and adaption. The review shows how several factors are working in concert to create significant climate change impacts: development of different GM traits; trait deployment in the most significant commodity crops; widespread adoption of GM crops globally; and consequent beneficial changes in farming practices.
Potential Impact of Genome Editing on Climate Adaptation and Mitigation

Oct 17, 2022 - Case Study
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Climate change poses an enormous challenge to plant agriculture. There is clearly a need for new crop varieties that can withstand extreme weather challenges while also relying on fewer inputs. Over the past 120 years, plant breeders have made remarkable progress in developing new crop varieties with novel traits, including increased productivity. However, the pace and scale of climate change will make it difficult for traditional breeding methods to generate the varieties needed to sustain food security and ameliorate the problem of increased CO2. Genome editing makes it possible to introduce precise changes to the plant genome, accelerating the production of new crop varieties, including those that better withstand the stresses induced by a changing climate.
Time and Cost to Bring A Biotech Crop to Market

Jun 30, 2022 - Infographic
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Key findings of a new 2022 study include:

The regulatory phase, the longest duration of the overall process, accounted for almost 40% (37.6%) of the total cost of commercialization and more importantly more than half (51.1%) of the time. This increase in time reflects an increase of almost 140% over the 2008-2012 study and an additional 40 months of lost commercial revenue for product developers.
Impact of Mexico’s Corn Ban

Jun 15, 2022 - Document
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Implementation of Mexico’s Presidential Decree banning genetically-modified (GM) corn will increase the country’s food insecurity, add $4.4 billion to its corn import costs, and impose unnecessary costly changes for US and Canadian farmers and a wide range of other industries.
Mexico GM Corn Infographic

Jun 16, 2022 - Infographic
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2022 Time and Cost to Market Study

May 13, 2022 -
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