How Agricultural Biotechnology Boosts Food Supply and Accomodates Biofuels / Steven Sexton, David Zilberman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sexton, Steven.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Zilberman, David.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w16699.

NBER working paper series no. w16699

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2011.

Summary:

Increased global demand for biofuels is placing increased pressure on agricultural systems at a time when traditional sources of yield improvements have been mostly exhausted, generating concerns about the future of food prices. This paper estimates the impact of global adoption of genetically engineered (GE) seeds on food supply by exploiting the spatial and temporal variation in the adoption of GE crops to identify the average yield effect due to GE technologies among adopters. The yield gains range from 65% for GE cotton to 12.4% for soybeans and appear to be higher in the developing world than in developed countries. The authors simulate food prices during the 2008 food crisis without GE-seed-induced yield gains. Genetically engineered crops appear to play an important role in arbitrating tensions between energy production, environmental protection, and global food supplies.

Notes:

Print version record

January 2011.