GMOs
What are GMOs?
Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs, are crops developed using precise plant breeding to achieve benefits such as resistance to certain insects and diseases, herbicide tolerance, enhanced nutritional value and reduced food waste.
What GMOs are grown in Canada?
Farmers in Canada have been growing GMO products since 1996. Currently the GMO crops being grown in Canada include: canola, corn, potatoes, soybeans, sugar beets and alfalfa. Apples have also been approved for production in Canada but are not yet being commercially grown. A further four GM crops are grown in other parts of the world – cotton, eggplant, papaya and squash.
What are the benefits of GMO?
Plant breeders use genetic engineering to move favourable genes from one organism to another to develop GMO crops with specific desirable traits. Some of the benefits include:
- Increased stress tolerance to adverse weather like frost or drought protects against the negative effects of extreme weather.
Herbicide tolerant crops allow farmers to remove the weeds from their fields using targeted herbicide applications rather than disturbing the soil with machinery. About 95 per cent of all canola currently grown in Canada is herbicide-tolerant resulting in increased productivity while also conserving organic matter and moisture, saving time, costs associated with fuel, machinery maintenance and avoiding greenhouse gas emissions.
- Thanks to herbicide-tolerant crops, farmers have been able to adopt practices like conservation tillage or no-till farming saving 1.2 billion litres of fuel between 1996 and 2018. (source)
- The carbon sequestration and fuel savings from no-till and conservation tillage practices saved an estimated 20 billion kgs of greenhouse gas emissions from being released into the atmosphere between 1996 and 2018, which is equivalent to removing about 13 million cars from the road for a year.
Improved quality characteristics that reduce food waste, like the bruising-resistant/non-browning Arctic® apple. Around 40 per cent of apples traditionally go to waste in Canada, but these new varieties can help reduce this figure thanks to plant science innovations.
- Improved nutrition, such as increasing essential nutrients e.g. the vitamin A-enhanced golden rice, and omega 3 soybeans, or reducing harmful substances, such, acrylamide that forms during the cooking of potatoes.