Executive summary

Dispelling the Myths: the real facts about agricultural biotechnology and biotech food is an update to Correcting the Myths which the American Soybean Association and eight other major U.S. farm organizations published in 2003.

We felt it necessary to produce a new edition of Correcting the Myths because so much information has since entered the public domain thanks to the work of scientists, economists and other researchers across the globe. Agricultural biotechnology is probably the most intensively studied agricultural innovation of all time. Yet almost without exception, the new data has confirmed the old, and allow us to conclude without hesitation that ag biotech has been measurably and valuably beneficial in every sense, highly successful as a farm tool, and has the potential to be even more outstanding in the years ahead.

Yet the old myths continue to circulate. Often they rely on information that is not only out of date but misconstrued, misapplied or invented. We have provided detailed rebuttals, supported by more than one hundred references, in the pages that follow. In summary, however, we can say with confidence that all the evidence has shown that:

• Biotechnology, far from being a disaster for U.S. farmers, has come to dominate production of the three big commodity crops: soybeans, corn and cotton. It has raised farmer incomes, saved them time and input costs, and maintained their competitiveness in world markets.
• It has increased net yields by reducing losses due to weed pressure and insect attack.
• It has cut pesticide use and substituted benign herbicides for environmentally harmful chemicals.
• It has enabled farmers to expand greatly their use of conservation tillage, which is better for insect and bird life, reduces soil erosion, and cuts the amount of CO2 farming releases into the atmosphere.
• It has made imported U.S. commodity crops cheaper for developing countries.
• It is proving even more advantageous when grown in developing countries, giving substantially greater yields and dramatic reductions in the use of dangerous chemicals compared to traditional methods (in China alone, Bt. cotton has probably saved several hundred farmers’ lives).
• It has made corn safer to eat by reducing the risk of mycotoxin poisoning, a serious problem in many developing countries where storage conditions are primitive.
• It has been confirmed as making food as safe, if not safer, than conventional agricultural methods, by all the world’s leading scientific institutions.

American Soybean Association, 2005

Complete report in PDF format: http://www.asa-europe.org/pdf/Dispelling%20the%20myths%202005.pdf