Economic aspects of growing genetically-modified crops

Abstract

Background. The widespread use of biotechnology methods in the first place, genetic engineering is recognized as the most promising direction for increasing output and improving the quality of products and food raw materials. An analysis of the literature shows that today there is no unified approach for tracking the process of growing of genetically modified crops, as well as calculation of the economic aspect of cultivation of GM crops worldwide. The aim of the article is the analysis of distribution and economic aspects of the cultivation of GM crops in different countries and determination of the prospects of their application.
Material and methods. The scientific achievements of domestic and foreign scholars on volumes, advantages and difficulties while growing GM crops have been used and generalized in the survey. The paper used the methods of analysis and synthesis, comparison.
Results. According to the scientists forecast in Ukraine the annual income of farmers, defined on the basis of a number of the aforementioned benefits of GM crops may be for GM soy from 28 to 66 million $ USA at 50 % of the level of implementation. At the 90 % level of implementation the potential annual benefit ranges from 50 to 119 million $ USA. Depending on the level of the introduction of GM maize (50 or 70 %), an additional annual income of farmers will be from 46 to 111 million $ USA. The use of herbicides in the cultivation will be reduced by 4.4–7.8 %, and their impact on the environment will be reduced by 15–24 %.
Conclusion. Recent studies show that genetically-modified crops are beneficial to farmers and consumers both in terms of growth technology and cost. Based on the analysis of prospects for the development of biotech crops there is a need to create a national register of GMO products and organization of the process of the declaration, which will allow to know its location, its further use and strengthen precise control.