白水丽人
旅行足迹，健康生活，饮食营养
今年二月二十九日，美国普渡大学发表的一项研究表明，如果转基因生物GMO在美国被禁止，结果将会是：食品价格升高，改变土地使用用途引起温室气体排放量的显著增加，以及森林和牧场土地的主要丧失。
农业经济学教授Tyner说 “这不是一个要还是不要转基因的争论，这其实是一个简单的问题：如果没有转基因世界将会怎样？”
根据他们收集的数据进行的研究结果显示，2014年在全世界28个国家有1800万的农民种植了约1亿8100万公顷 （注：1公顷=2.471英亩=10000平方米）的转基因作物，其中大约40% 的转基因作物在美国种植。
他们使用用来检测农业，能源，贸易和环境政策的改变对经济影响的模型GTAPBIO分析这些资料。
模型显示在美国去除GMO，玉米产量平均下降11.2%，黄豆减产5.2%，棉花减产18.6%。要弥补这些损失，必须将大约102000公顷的美国森林和牧场改变成耕地和全球平均1.1百万公顷。
由于较低的作物产量，必须从牧场和森林转换更多的土地用于农业生产，温室气体排放量会显著增加。
换句话说，这些如果在美国限制GMO导致的温室气体排放量的增加将会超过创造足够的土地以达到联邦强制的关于150亿生物燃料的需求量。
“一些同样反转基因食品组织要求减少温室气体的排放以减低全球变暖的可能，”Tyner说。“我们得到的结果是二者不能兼得。如果你想要在农业方面减少温室气体排放，一个重要的工具就用是转基因来达到。”
根据研究，如果没有转基因导致作物产量降低，商品价格上升。玉米价格将会增加28%，黄豆价格增加22%。预计每年的食品价格增加140-240亿美元。
在美国每年种植转基因产品几乎占所有玉米（89%）、大豆（94%）和棉花（91%）。一些国家已经禁止转基因产品，有些国家正在考虑禁止。农业经济学教授Tyner和农业经济学研究副教授 Taheripour说他们将继续他们的研究以搞清楚在全球范围内扩大和减少GMO作物会如何影响经济和环境。
详细信息可参考：
原文摘要：
Evaluation of Economic, Land Use, and Land Use Emission Impacts of Substituting Non-GMO Crops for GMO in the US
Farzad Taheripour, Harry Mahaffey, and Wallace E. Tyner
Farzad Taheripour is Research Associate Professor, Harry Mahaffey is a MS student, and Wallace E. Tyner is James and Lois Ackerman Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University
The main objective of this study was to evaluate what would be the economic and environmental consequences of losing the GMO traits in the U.S. for the major crops of corn, soybeans and cotton. The first step was to obtain from the literature a range of estimates of the yield losses if we move away from GMO traits in the U.S. The second step was to introduce the yield losses obtained in the first step into a well known CGE model, GTAP-BIO, to quantify the land use and economic impacts of banning GMO traits in the U.S. Our analysis confirms that if we do not have access to the GMO technology, a significant amount of land would need to be converted from other crops, cropland pasture, pasture and forest to meet the global food demand. The land expansion likely is similar to the entire U.S. ethanol program. Furthermore, induced land use emissions were significantly larger that the corresponding figure for corn ethanol. The price changes for corn were as high as 28% and for soybeans as high as 22%. In general, the price increases for the reference and average cases were higher than those observed previously for biofuel shocks. Food price changes in the U.S. amount to $14-$24 billion per year. As expected, welfare falls both in the U.S. and globally.
