What we have now that we didn't have 10 years ago is the entire genetic codes of many, many organisms—bacteria, plants, animals—so that we have a much better ability to take genes that we have a lot of information about from one organism to another. Because of that, the technology is going to explode. In other words, the suite of genes that are out there as tools is about to explode.
The balanced view on this would be that, so far, if you look at crop improvement around the world, GMOs have played a minor role, and I say that as a molecular geneticist. It's the traditional breeders who have had a much bigger impact on yields.
The reason is that basic yields have to do with many, many genes. You have to make minor modifications to many genes, generally speaking, to increase yield. That's called primary metabolism. Where GMOs will have a significant impact is on what's called secondary metabolism. That's how an organism interacts with its environment, such as insect disease resistance.
GMOs can have a big impact, but it's going to be limited to a certain area. The other area in secondary metabolism has to do with interesting traits like nutraceutical traits. It will have a major impact.
There are traits where a single gene, or one or two or three genes, can have a major impact. And there are other traits where that's exaggerated.