II. Benefits
A. Increased crop yields
There is an expectation widely held by those in agriculture that GM seeds will increase the yields of farmers that adopt the technology. Although there is not yet a large volume
of research regarding the impact of biotechnology on crop yields and returns, the research
that is available supports this expectation.
In a study using 1997 data, the Economic Research Service (ERS) found a statistically
significant relationship between increased crop yields and increased adoption of
herbicide- and pesticide-tolerant crop seeds.5
The ERS study found that crop yields
"significantly increased" when farmers adopted herbicide-tolerant cotton and Bt cotton.6
The use of herbicide-tolerant soybeans resulted in a "small increase" in crop yields.
Another study performed by Iowa State University found that Bt crops out-yielded nonBt
crops. The university studied 377 fields and estimated that crops grown from GM
seeds yielded 160.4 bushels of Bt corn per field, while crops grown from non-GM seeds
yielded 147.7 per field.