Environmental Protection
Herbicide-tolerant crops give farmers greater flexibility and safer, more innovative choices in pest management. These crops also promote conservation tillage, preserving topsoil and protecting water quality. These farming techniques even cut greenhouse gas effects by sequestering carbon in the soil. Bt crops reduce pesticide use and increase fertilizer efficiency. Low phytic-acid corn and soybeans, and phytase feed enzymes, increase livestock's ability to digest and absorb phosphorous, cutting back on nutrients left in runoff.

Increased Productivity
Genetically modified crops are helping to reduce costly farming inputs and to increase yields on a per-acre basis. Insect, weed and disease pressures - that can take big bites out of yield - are reduced. So are the chemical agents and labor normally used to control them. When costs come down and yields go up, the productivity picture is brighter. That's the trend with biotechnology.

Biodiversity and Sustainability
The greatest threat to biodiversity is loss of wildlife habitat when it is converted to low-yield agriculture. Technologies that increase productivity on existing cultivated acreage will help meet increasing world food demand and reduce pressure to encroach further on wildlife habitat.