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Encourages Water Conservation and Air Quality
As biotech crops reduce the number of times farmers till their land, they also reduce the amount of air-borne dust particles created on farms. In turn, that cuts the amount of water farmers must apply to keep down the dust. As a result, biotechnology has reduced water consumption by 309 million gallons a year. [Fawcett, R., Towery, D. 2002. Conservation Tillage and Plant Biotechnology. Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC).]
Biotechnology has also resulted in less fuel being used by farming equipment, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1 billion pounds per year. [Fawcett, R., Towery, D. 2002. Conservation Tillage and Plant Biotechnology. Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC).]
Specially designed, biotech plants can play a significant role in removing impurities from soil and water. A recent University of California, Berkeley, study found that biotech plants absorb more soil impurities than other plants, resulting in cleaner soils and wastewater. Non-food, biotech plants created for this task absorbed two to four times more pollutants than many of their counterparts. (UC Berkeley, 2005)
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