Environmental benefits
The use of agricultural biotechnology offers a number of important environmental benefits:
• Reducing the need to increase the area of the earth given over to agriculture by increasing the productivity of current land use.
• Promoting minimal tillage which reduces fuel use and greenhouse gases whilst reducing soil erosion.
• Helping to reduce green house gas emissions through the delivery of a sustainable biofuels market, fuelling future transportation needs.
• Helping farmers adapt to the changing climate by producing crops with improved drought, stress, salt and low-nitrogen tolerance.
• Biotechnology can help reduce the need to increase the area of the earth given over to agriculture by increasing the productivity of current land use
The amount of land available per unit of the population has recently fallen below 0.3 hectares. With a global population exceeding six billion, the choices available to us are stark; either more land needs to be cultivated, putting at risk fragile ecosystems in the tropics, or the amount of food produced on current agricultural land has to increase.
Examples of GM crops increasing the productivity of agriculture are evident from around the world, including the UK, where GM winter oilseed rape out yielded its non-GM counterpart in the UK Government’s Farm Scale Evaluation programme of GM field trials by an average of 14%.
• Biotechnology helps to promoting minimal tillage which reduces fuel use and greenhouse gases whilst reducing soil erosion
Herbicide-tolerant soya, maize, cotton and oilseed rape has allowed farmers to reduce the amount of ploughing required before planting their crops. This so-called minimal tillage dramatically reduced the amount of fuel required to grow a crop. In the case of canola in Canada, it has been estimated that the switch from non-GM to GM has reduced fuel use by 31 million litres with a concomitant reduction in CO2 emissions equivalent to taking up to 20,000 cars of the road a year.
Another impact of reduced ploughing is the reduction in soil erosion; in some parts of the UK, this is cited as a major reason why farmers have switched to a GM variety.
• Biotechnology can help deliver a sustainable and competitive biofuels market in the UK.
At the moment, and for the foreseeable future, our road transport sector is almost completely dependent on liquid fuel. This means the only realistic alternative to fossil based fuels is biofuels produced from crops. Biofuels that can be blended with existing transport fuels and that are compatible with existing vehicles make them easy to integrate into everyday use.
The use of biofuels in vehicles can yield significant benefits in terms of greenhouse gas emissions compared to petroleum-based automotive fuels, although the precise amount of saved CO2 emission depends on the specific type and source of biofuels used and a range of other factors.
Agricultural biotechnology is an effective and innovative tool to help deliver a viable biofuels market. It can help to:
- Increase the yield while reducing the need for production inputs;
- Increase the yield through improving the crop quality;
- Grow energy crops in areas with marginal conditions e.g. drought, saline soils;
- Develop efficient micro-organisms and enzymes to convert the cellulose in the crops to sugars, which can them be fermented into biofuel; and
- Convert agricultural waste into biofuels.
Biofuels can help us meet the demand for fuel and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers should be able to utilise the opportunities arising from the growing demand for biofuels grown in the UK. However, given the limited land available, it needs to be used as efficiently as possible and technologies, such as GM, that can help increase productivity of both food and fuel should be used to help deliver this.
• Agricultural biotechnology help farmers deal with water scarcity by reducing water loss and improving drought tolerance.
Water plays a vital role in farming as 70% of clean water on the planet is used in farming. Agricultural biotechnology can help in two crucial ways, reducing the loss of water from agriculture and improving the drought tolerance of the crops grown.
1. Reducing water loss from agriculture
- Herbicide-tolerant soya, maize, cotton and oilseed rape has allowed farmers to reduce the amount of ploughing required before planting their crops.
- This means the soil surface is not broken, which helps trap moisture under soil which is available to the crops even under drought conditions.
- It also helps reduce fossil fuel use and, therefore, carbon dioxide emissions and soil erosion.
2. Improving tolerance to drought
- Plants react to stresses, such as drought, by consuming large quantities of energy which is normally used for growth and seed production.
- The effects of drought can therefore completely drain the plant’s energy reserves. The result can be irreversible damage to the plant, or even death.
- Any attempt to improve drought tolerance, will have an immediate positive impact on the energy available to the plant for growth and seed production
- Examples of research in this area include:
Drought Tolerant Oilseed Rape
- Reducing the levels PARP [poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase], a key stress-related protein in plants resulted in a crop which was far better able to survive drought than reference plants.
- Field trial results for summer 2006 harvest show relative yield increases of up to +44% compared to non-drought tolerant varieties.
- Companies are currently conducting research work on corn, cotton, oilseed rape and rice, with the objective of developing a new generation of stress-tolerant, high-performance crop varieties.
Drought Tolerant Corn
- Hybrid crops have been developed to tolerate drought and periodic water deficits.
- During the next decade, companies are planning to introduce GM crops that will further improve drought tolerance.
- While no plant can grow without water, hybrids and varieties are being developed that use water sources more efficiently and therefore perform better during water deficits.
- Maintaining yields during water stress will help preserve the incomes of those who grow the crops and will produce yield more grain for food and energy as well as reducing the need for irrigation.