According to a Chinese study recently published in Nature, biotech cotton designed to resist crop-damaging insects has demonstrated some unexpected environmental benefits. Because farmers who plant the biotech cotton are able to use fewer chemicals to control pests, beneficial insects that feed on crop-damaging aphids are more likely to thrive and contribute further to protecting the cotton plants. The study, based on 20 years of data from northern China, was led by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing. Read more.

European opposition to biotech crops has no scientific basis and will cost the continent dearly in biodiversity, land preservation, and adaptation to global warming, according to four Swedish scientists who say the European Union’s approval process has been captured by special interests who “demonize” agricultural biotechnology.

“Lobbyists who benefit from demonizing GM crops are not the ones who have to carry the costs,” the quartet wrote in EMBO Reports, published by Nature for the European Molecular Biology Organization.  “It is not the hyped risks of GM crops that are a problem in the EU, it is the submissive attitude of politicians and policymakers towards organizations who insist that GM crops are risky. It is then ordinary consumers who pay the costs and do not receive the benefits.” READ MORE »