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saline tolerant, more drought resistant, more mold repellant, or immune to viruses.

In the coming decades we are going to need every tool in the agricultural
toolbox�especially the discoveries and applications of genetic science�to meet the
challenge of feeding a population surging to nine billion and beyond. Emerging
challenges like climate change accentuate the need for exploring all solutions to
the problems facing our planet�s food supply.

But standing in the way of developing a comprehensive plan that uses all available
options are advocacy groups, some genuinely concerned and others not so genuine,
who wittingly or not promote misinformation about biotechnology. We dissect eleven
foundational falsehoods used by anti-GMO activists.

#1 GMOs decrease dangerous pesticide usage

Genetically modified insect-resistant crops produce their own, highly-specific
pesticide (called Bt proteins) against a specific group of pests. This means that
farmers do not need to spray that much insecticides over their crops. Bt proteins
are also a lot safer than pesticides used in conventional farming.
Crops genetically modified to resist the herbicide glyphosate mean that farmers can
use this much safer herbicide instead of much more dangerous herbicide that they
used before.
Thus, GMOs have reduced pesticide use by 37% and has allowed farmers to severely
decrease their reliance on dangerous pesticides and herbicides.
#2 GMOs increases yield and decrease land use
Because GMOs increases yield whereas organic farming decreases yield by 34%, GMOs
requires substantially less land compared with conventional and organic farming to
grow the same amount of food. It has thus a much milder agricultural impact than
the alternatives.
#3 GMOs boost no-tilling farming
Tilling is used (among other things) as a weed-management method, but it also
removes nutrients from the soil, causes more erosion and run-off, and harms
earthworms, ants and other organisms.
Because herbicide-resistant crops do not require as much mechanical weed removal,
GM farmers do not need to till their soil as much and some farms that grow GMOs do
not engage in any tilling at all.

#4 GMOs save beneficial insects

Because insect-resistant GMOs that use the Bt proteins only affect a specific group
of insect pests, it has little to no effect on any other insects. This means that
beneficial insects that would previously have died due to broad-spectrum
insecticides being sprayed will now survive on farms that grow GM crops.
#5 GMOs reduce carbon dioxide emissions
Because GMOs reduce pesticide usage and tilling, farms that grow GMOs require less
diesel to power their tractors and thus produce less carbon dioxide.
Less carbon dioxide mean that GM farms have a smaller carbon footprint and are thus
more eco-friendly in this area.
Bottom line
Many GMOs are good for the environment.

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we have been
reluctant to invest time, finances and energy in evaluating
the environmental implications of GM crops. For us, our
planet is one large natural genetic pool where all living organisms
continuously activate and deactivate genomes in
response to perceived environmental stresses. The adaptation,
survival and evolution of plants depend on their ability
to alter genomes through transposition of the movable elements,
accumulation of deletions, insertions, gene amplifications
and point mutations.
Genomic studies of the last decade have demonstrated that
a genome is not a static entity but a dynamic structure continuously
refining its gene pool