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Advisory / BIOTECHNOLOGY

Bio-Technology : Environmental Benefits

Crops Protected Against Insect Damage
Biotechnology is used to strengthen a crop's own ability to defend itself against destructive insects, reducing and sometimes eliminating the need for chemical pesticides. The plants are given the genetic ability to produce a protein - toxic to certain insects - that is found in a common soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt. 

Organic farmers and home gardeners often use topical sprays of Bt proteins to control insects because it's natural and very safe, and targets specific insects and nothing else. The Bt crops go one step better than topical sprays by producing the protein inside the plant's interior stalk and root tissues where the larval or wormlike pests bore in and start eating. The healthier plants result in higher yields and improved fertilizer efficiency. 

Crops with Bt insect protection include corn, cotton and potatoes, and will soon include sunflower, canola, wheat and tomatoes. In the future, consumers will plant lawns with Bt turfgrass protected against grubs. 

Herbicide Tolerance for Innovative Farming
Crops that are genetically modified to withstand applications of herbicides give farmers greater flexibility in their pest control strategy, allow them to use weed controls more selectively and to use environmentally gentler herbicides. 

Rather than applying herbicide before planting, farmers can wait into the growing season, after the herbicide tolerant crop emerges, to see where weed pressures develop before spraying. 

Then the farmer applies pesticides only where and in quantities as needed. The herbicide tolerant trait allows farmers to spray pesticides "over the top" to control the weeds without harming the crops. 

The farmer uses safer controls, reducing overall environmental impact, and sprays less often, reducing the farmer's production costs. On both counts, farmer satisfaction increases, especially as superior weed control also increases productivity per acre. Soybean, cotton, corn and canola have herbicide-tolerant varieties. Wheat, rice and sugar beet are in development. 

Water Quality Protection
Reducing nutrients in farm runoff, increasing crops' fertilizer efficiency and conserving topsoil are ways that biotechnology helps protect water quality. Low phytic acid corn and phytase feed enzymes unlock the ability of livestock to digest and absorb phosphates in feed grain, and reduce potentially harmful phosphorus in farm animal waste. Reduced insect damage in Bt crops means healthier plants use fertilizer more efficiently, reducing excess soil nutrients. And herbicide tolerant crops promote conservation tillage, preserving topsoil and even reducing greenhouse gas effects by keeping carbon "sequestered" in soil. 

Protection Against Plant Diseases
Plant diseases caused by viruses exact a devastating toll on food production, especially in developing regions of the world that can least afford the losses. Biotechnology arms disease-protected varieties with the plant equivalent of a "vaccine." Crops with disease protection include sweet potato and cassava, critical staple crops in Africa, as well as rice and corn.