Industrial farming operations apply massive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer to crops

Comments by Doug Gurian-Sherman on the Report of the Expert Committee (EC-II) on Bt Brinjal Event EE-1 (developed by: M/s
Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Ltd. (Mahyco) and partners, and submitted to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, New Delhi, October 8 2009).

Genetic engineering has been promoted as an important means for dramatically improving the yields of staple food crops, but there is little evidence to support such a claim. In Failure to Yield, the Union of Concerned Scientists provides the most comprehensive evaluation to date of more than two decades of U.S. genetic engineering research and commercialization aimed at increasing crop yield.