Fact Sheets
Feeding 10 Billion - Responding to Climate Change
How can innovative technologies and practices help to produce more food while managing a changing climate?
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Supporting Farmers
I’m worried about climate change. How is the plant science industry playing its part?
Advances in plant science are both reducing emissions, and helping farmers adapt to a changing climate.
Use of GM crops has led to a reduction of 26.7 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions globally. That’s equivalent to removing 12 million cars from the road for one year.
These cuts in emissions are achieved through reduced land use, tillage, and summer fallow (all practices enabled through modern agricultural chemicals and biotechnology), which mean that farmers don’t need to use machinery quite so much. 194 million litres of diesel fuel are saved each year, and almost 4 times more carbon can be sequestered in the soil.
Since 1996, GM crops have also conserved biodiversity by saving more than 430 million acres of land from being cleared for agricultural production.
Plus, GM crops currently under development have a greater tolerance of salinity, drought, and acid soils, which will help farmers produce the food we need in a changing climate. Find out more about future innovations in plant science.
