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14 SEEDWORLD.COM JUNE 2016 The adoption of Bt cotton led to profit gains of 50 percent for smallholder farmers in India. would get converted to cropland. That releases stored-up carbon and so you have an increase in emissions. In other words the increase in greenhouse gas emissions that would come from banning GMOs in the United States would be greater than the amount needed to create enough land to meet federal mandates of about 15 billion gallons of biofuels Tyner shares. Some of the same groups that oppose GMOs want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the potential for global warming he says. The reality of it seems to be that you cant have it both ways. If you want to reduce greenhouse gas emis- sions in agriculture an important tool to do that is with GM traits. GMOs and the Developing World The extra quarter-million acres of land that would have to be cultivated in the United States if GMOs were banned is sig- nificant but is minor when compared to the amount of extra farmland that would be needed on a global scale if GMOs were banned in the developing world. Matin Qaim a professor of international food economics and rural development at the University of Gttingen in Germany has studied GMO policy for 20 years. His book Genetically Modified Crops and Agricultural Development was released earlier this year. If we banned GMOs worldwide we would require around 25 million hectares almost 62 million acres of additional land to be taken into cultivation to make up for the production loss these crops currently produce Qaim says. Thats huge. Its double the cropland in Germany alone. Qaims research examines the impact GM crops have had in developing nations specifically Africa South America India and China. His research finds that GMOs are even more beneficial for farmers in the developing world than in developed nations. The effects of a total GMO ban would be larger in developing countries since the benefits are larger there he says. When we look at Bt crops that provide resistance to insect pests this is a technology that is particularly useful in areas where you have a lot of pest pressure. In the typical situations faced by small-scale farmers in the tropics and subtropics of Africa and Asia you do have a lot