Research Service,

I've been working with the Agricultural Research Service for about eighteen years

and more recently I had an opportunity to look at the

benefits in

of biotech crops.

One of the main benefits of biotech crops is that we have

a reduced use of insecticide.

For example uh... BT

cotton in particular, there's been an eighty, ninety percent reduction of insecticides

for that.

And also with BT maize, we found a reduction of insecticides,

primarily because of the reduced use of insecticides for

corn root worm beatles. When we compare biotech crops with crops that have traditionally been sprayed with

insecticides,

we find that there's an increase of biodiversity in general.

And in particular we find that there's a lot of

beneficial insects like lady beetles and lace wings that may be good for

biological control purposes.

But probably the best example I can give for the benefit of a uh... a BT

crop is BT cotton.

I had a colleague that worked in Mississippi

and prior to BT cotton they used to spray cotton

all, all the time maybe

ten, twelve times a year.

And he said that when you walked into those fields

there was nothing.

He didn't hear any birds; he didn't see any butterflies flying around.

And now that we have BT cotton,

there's some biodiversity in these fields where before there was a hardly anything.

I think you make a strong argument that the biotech crops

are good tools for sustainability

We have reduced use of chemicals, insecticides,

in some cases reduced use of herbicides or safer

herbicides.

And also now we can use no-till practices, especially

in areas where we have herbicide -resistant crops.

I think if you look at the big picture of biotech crops is that number one

we have a

really important tool

in our toolbox now that we can use.

And because of reduced insecticides, reduced use of tillage

reduced use of some harmful

herbicides,

I'd say that

that's more sustainable.

One of the other advantages that we find with biotech crops,

compared with the non-biotech crops,

is that because

there's, the insect damage is controlled, especially in BT maize, there's fewer

toxins associated with molds.

And this is a major benefit because these can be harmful to humans,

could be harmful to livestock.

If we can consider the overall

environmental benefits of biotech crops, because of the reduced use of

insecticides

increased use of

no-till agriculture

that uh... I'd say that it's, it's very positive. Especially if

we compare with traditional farming practices where

we use tillage, or if we use insecticides to control insects.

I've had an opportunity to work with BT maize for about

fifteen, sixteen years now.

The lab I work in for many years has been trying to breed corn that's more

effective against European corn borer. And European corn borer has been a major pest in the united

States

for the last class fifty years.

It, as it moved through the corn belt, migrating from the east in

the forties and fifties, it just devastated corn.

So we worked with corn breeders using host plants, post plant

resistance

trying to to breed better corn.

They developed corn that was

resistant, at least tolerant to, European corn borer.

That when you, one day, and I'll never forget this, when we first started to work

with BT maize,

this uh...

researcher came in who's been working on this for nearly his whole career

and he said, "Wow, this stuff is bulletproof. I've never seen anything like it." And that's true. If you look at uh... BT maize

it's uh... it's a very effective technology .