Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
including crops with other improved agro-
nomic traits and nutritional traits.
nii cantly (Table 14.1). h is was due largely
to the fact that herbicide sprays were
substituted for tillage. In Argentina, the
share of soybean farmers using no-till has
almost doubled to 80% since the introduction
of HT technology. Also, in the USA and
Canada, no-till practices expanded through
HT adoption (Fernandez-Cornejo and
Caswell, 2006). In terms of yield, there is no
signii cant dif erence between HT and
conventional crops in most cases. Only in a
few examples, where certain weeds were
dii cult to control with selective herbicides,
did the adoption of HT and the switch to
broad-spectrum herbicides result in better
weed control and higher crop yields.
Examples are HT soybeans in Romania and
HT maize in Argentina (Brookes and
Barfoot, 2012).
Overall, HT technology reduces the cost
of production through lower expenditures
on herbicides, labour, machinery and fuel.
Yet, the innovating companies charge a
technology fee on seeds, which varies
between crops and countries. Several early
studies of HT soybeans in the USA showed
that the fee was of a similar magnitude or
sometimes higher than the average cost
reduction, so that proi t ef ects were small
or negative (Naseem and Pray, 2004).
Comparable results were also obtained for
HT cotton and HT rapeseed in the USA and
Canada. h e main reason for farmers in
such situations to still use HT technology
was easier weed control and the saving of
Herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops are tolerant
to certain broad-spectrum herbicides like
glyphosate or glufosinate, which are more
ef ective, less toxic and usually cheaper than
selective herbicides. HT technology so far is
used mostly in soybean, maize, cotton and
rapeseed, and to a lesser extent in sugarbeet
and a few other crops. h e dominant crop is
HT soybean, which was grown on 81 Mha in
2012, mostly in the USA, Brazil, and
Argentina, but also in a number of other
countries. Likewise, HT maize is cultivated
primarily in North and South America, with
smaller areas in South Africa and the
Philippines. In maize, HT is often stacked
with insect-resistance genes. h e same is
true for HT cotton in the USA. HT rapeseed
is grown predominantly in Canada and the
USA (James, 2012; Fig. 1.2).
HT-adopting farmers benei t in terms of
lower herbicide expenditures. Total herbicide
quantities applied were reduced in some
situations but not in others. In Argentina,
herbicide quantities were increased sig-
Table 14.1.
Average effects of HT soybeans in Argentina. (From Qaim and Traxler, 2005.)
Conventional
soybeans
Change
(%)
HT soybeans
Herbicide expenditure (US$/ha)
33.64
19.10
-43.2
Herbicide quantity (l/ha)
2.68
5.57
107.8
Of which:
In toxicity classes I-III (l/ha)
1.10
0.07
-93.6
In toxicity class IV (l/ha)
1.58
5.50
248.1
Share of farmers using no-till practices
0.42
0.80
90.5
Number of tillage passes per plot
1.66
0.69
-58.4
Labour time (h/ha)
3.92
3.30
-15.8
Machinery time (h/ha)
2.52
2.02
-19.8
Fuel (l/ha)
53.03
43.70
-17.6
Cost of production (US$/ha)
212.99
192.29
-9.7
Soybean yield (t/ha)
3.02
3.01
-0.3
Profi t (US$/ha)
271.66
294.65
8.5
