It's hard to know how biotech crops affect the environment if you don't know where they are. With that in mind, researchers from universities across the country – including California, Arizona, Illinois, Nebraska and elsewhere – have published a call for mapping US biotech crops.

The report entitled “Harvesting Data from Genetically Engineered Crops”, was just published in today's issue of Science. The effort stemmed from the University of Arizona who has been working with local farmers to map biotech crops in the state. The researchers call it a “win-win” situation in which they get to analyze data the farmers collect, and the farmers get an idea of how to control pests better and “make more money.”

That's fine, just as long as the back scratching between scientists and biotech farmers doesn't fog up the results. Some results out of Arizona show that biotech crops are fighting insects more efficiently while maintaining yields, but in much larger, long-term studies, biotech crops aren't always keep up either economically or environmentally. Still, a nation-wide map of biotech crops could provide some transparency.

Currently the US Department of Agriculture provides data from individual farms to their respective state researchers. But scientists in today's report say that key questions about environmental impacts need to be evaluated looking at larger, regional ecosystems with the ability to compare across the nation.

Photo: Cotton fields in Arizona

Sources: Science Daily, Physorg.com

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment