Economist: Biotechnology Could Contribute to Field Crop Yield Trends

Ohio State University agricultural economics professor Carl Zulauf published a report stating that statistical evidence on linear yield trends shows that biotechnology could play a role in escalatiing production. He studied the yield trends for corn, soybeans, and cotton, which are three of the most widely planted biotech crops in the U.S., and compared the trends with 11 other crops which are not yet commercialized as biotech products. The results of his evaluation showed that the 14 crops exhibited higher estimated yield trend from 1996-2011, the years when biotech varieties are already commercialized in the U.S. compared with the yield data of 1940-1995 when only conventional breeding techniques were used.

"This analysis finds that, while the yield trend increased for all three biotech crops after 1996, the yield trend increased for less than half of the crops for which biotech varieties are of limited importance," Zulauf says. "This finding does not prove that biotechnology is the reason for the higher yield trend for corn, cotton and soybeans. It only reveals that the evidence on linear yield trends is not inconsistent with such a conclusion."

Read the original article at http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/seed/biotechnology-could-contribute-field-crop-yield-trends. The full paper can be accessed at http://aede.osu.edu/biotechnology-and-us-crop-yield-trends.