Pullman, Wash. – Anyone uncertain about the merits of biotechnology for food in agriculture should read a new report by the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy, a nonprofit research group based in Washington.

The NCFAP report, released June 10, notes that a mere eight varieties of genetically modified crops provided an overall value to U.S. agriculture of $2.5 billion through higher yields and lower costs of production in 2001.

The lower production costs produced a major environmental benefit as well – reducing pesticide use by 46 million pounds. The full report can be found on the web at www.ncfap.org and ought to be required reading for everyone involved in the ongoing debate, including America’s farming community.

The eight biotech varieties included in this NCFAP analysis were widely disprate. They included insect-resistant cotton and corn, herbicide-tolerant soybeans, corn and canola, and virus resistant squash and papaya.

Conservation Methods
The Greatest increase in production occurred with insect-resistant corn, which yielded an additional 1.75 million tons, and the greatest cost savings occurred with herbicide-tolerant soybeans that reduced the use of herbicides by an estimated $1 billion.

Herbicide-tolerant crops also made it easier for farmers to adopt a no-till system of farming, which reduces the potential for soil erosion in addition to the cost of production.

According to the Conservation Technology Information Service at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., about 25 million acres of soybeans, one-third of the total U.S. soybean crop in2001, were grown with the no-till method of farming – the most of any crop.

As startling as these numbers may seem, similar gains could be cited for the hundreds of pests and diseases controlled during the past 100 or more years by the methods of genetic modification referred to collectively as “traditional” plant breeding.

These gains account in large part for why we Americans today spend only about 10 percent of our incomes for the highest quality and more abundant food in the world.

What is particularly exciting about the NCFAP report is that someone actually put the numbers together to document what happens or can happen when pests or diseases are controlled using genetic modification.

None of these biotech crops were grown in my region of the Pacific Northwest and thus, consumers and farmers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho were deprived of the added values and benefits of plant biotechnology.

Green Revolution
This is in stark contrast to the first “green revolution” of the 1970’s, which began in Washington State University’s development of the first commercially grown high-yielding dwarf wheat.

Despite the proven safety efficacy of biotech crops, misinformation has created lingering skepticism. A Biotech variety of potato with on gene that resists the Colorado potato beetle and another that resists the potato leaf roll virus – two pests currently managed with pesticides – was rejected by the fast-food industry out of fear that we consumers would consider these potatoes unsafe to eat.

The NCFAP report pointed out that the genetically modified insect/virus resistant potato along with 5 other biotech crop varieties in the pipeline have potential to increase the net value of Idaho, Oregon and Washington agriculture by an estimated $1.8 billion if fully adopted.

At the same time, the new crops could decrease the amount of pesticide used in Pacific Northwest’s tri-state region by about 20 million pounds annually.

Gene Modifications
The five genetic modifications in the pipeline for Northwest crops are raspberry with resistance to the region’s most devastating virus disease, wheat with resistance to two important virus diseases, and potatoes with tolerance to an herbicide and resistance to the verticillium wilt fungus now controlled by soil fumigation.

Like most other pests and diseases still controlled by pesticides, none of the four crop diseases targeted for control by biotechnology in the Pacific Northwest have been brought under control by anywhere in the world using traditional breeding practices.

While most alternatives to pesticides have tended to make food more expensive, controlling plant pests and diseases through genetic modification lowers the cost of production.

Food produced from these crops is no more expensive and eventually becomes less expensive as the lower costs of production are passed on to consumers. In addition, crops protected from pests and diseases leave less fertilizer unused in the soil, they return more organic matter to the soil, and the harvested products almost always are of a higher quality than products from crops damaged by pests and diseases.

At a time when each day’s news seems to be dominated by depressing stories, the center’s report confirms that we’re capable of making progress with major benefits for the human race. That’s a bit of refreshing good news for all Americans.

Editor’s Note: Cook holds the endowed chair in wheat research at Washington State University in Pullman and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.