GMOs provide crop and health benefits, research suggests

Feb 20, 2018

Researchers studied two decades of GMO corn data

By Diego Flammini
News Reporter
Farms.com

Genetically modified corn helps farmers achieve bigger yields and provides human health benefits, according to a new study.

Since GMOs became a mainstay on many farms, GMO corn varieties have increased yields between 5.6 and 24.5 percent between 1996 and 2016, according to Italian researchers.

The researchers analyzed more than 6,000 peer-reviewed studies, which covered 21 years of data from such locations as the United States, Canada, as well as parts of Europe.

GMO corn contains lower amounts of toxins that can damage human health, they found.

“The results clearly indicate that GE maize grain contains lower amounts of mycotoxins (29 percent), fumoninsin (31 percent) and (trichothecenes) (37 percent) than its non-GE counterpart,” according to the study.

The analysis should help move along the conversation that GMOs do not pose a threat to human health, according to one of the researchers.

“This analysis provides an effective synthesis on a specific problem that is widely discusses publicly,” coauthor Laura Ercoli told the Italian newspaper la Republlica on Thursday.

GMOs are also helping to reduce the amount of active ingredients in crop protection products.

Some authors have estimated that, between 1996 and 2011, the use of GMO corn has “caused a reduction in the volume of the active ingredient of herbicides and insecticides of 10.1 percent and 45.2 percent respectively,” according to the Italian researchers.

The findings were published in Impact of genetically engineered maize on agronomic, environmental and toxicological traits: a meta-analysis of 21 years of field data.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.