Nine wheat organizations in Australia, Canada and the United States, among them the North American Millers’ Association, recently released a joint statement that called for a synchronized introduction of genetically modified (GM) wheat into the marketplace.
The trend toward major biotech crops in soybeans, corn and canola is already well established over the past dozen years. It is high time that wheat joins their ranks.
The potential benefits of extending this technology to wheat are quite real, for both producers and consumers, as a recently updated study by British economists Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot demonstrates. The authors note that GM varieties help generate higher yields for many farmers and therefore increase overall crop production. Biotech crops also significantly increase farmers’ incomes, reduce the need for pesticide spraying and cut greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture.
