How Agricultural Biotechnology Boosts Food Supply and Accomodates Biofuels
22 Pages Posted: 18 Jan 2011 Last revised: 17 Feb 2023
Date Written: January 2011
Abstract
Increased global demand for biofuels is placing increased pressure on agricultural systems at a time when traditional sources of yield improvements have been mostly exhausted, generating concerns about the future of food prices. This paper estimates the impact of global adoption of genetically engineered (GE) seeds on food supply by exploiting the spatial and temporal variation in the adoption of GE crops to identify the average yield effect due to GE technologies among adopters. The yield gains range from 65% for GE cotton to 12.4% for soybeans and appear to be higher in the developing world than in developed countries. The authors simulate food prices during the 2008 food crisis without GE-seed-induced yield gains. Genetically engineered crops appear to play an important role in arbitrating tensions between energy production, environmental protection, and global food supplies.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Regression Discontinuity Designs: A Guide to Practice
By Guido W. Imbens and Thomas Lemieux
-
Regression Discontinuity Designs: A Guide to Practice
By Guido W. Imbens and Thomas Lemieux
-
Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation
-
Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation
-
Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics
By David Lee and Thomas Lemieux
-
Does Head Start Improve Children's Life Chances? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design
By Jens Ludwig and Douglas L. Miller
-
Does Head Start Improve Children's Life Chances? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design
By Jens Ludwig and Douglas L. Miller
-
Manipulation of the Running Variable in the Regression Discontinuity Design: A Density Test
-
Remedial Education and Student Achievement: A Regression-Discontinuity Analysis
By Brian Jacob and Lars John Lefgren
-
Regression Discontinuity Inference with Specification Error
By David Lee and David Card