Bt Corn Case Study - Term Paper - Free College Essays.

Bt is a bacterium that occurs naturally and produces insect larvae lethal protein crystals. Moreover, the Bt protein genes are transferred into corn, making it possible for the corn to generate pesticides of its own for instance the European corn borer (Ferry and Gatehouse 60).

Corn: the Ear-resistible Crop When you think about what makes the food industry capable of producing lots of greasy, diabetes-ridden food and selling it for extremely low prices, corn is not often what comes to mind. Corn is not the only source of cheap energy in the supermarket, but it is.

Bt-Corn: What it is and How it Works Ric Bessin, Extension Specialist Entfact-130 Bt-corn is a type of genetically modified organism, termed GMO. A GMO is a plant or animal that has been genetically modified through the addition of a small amount of genetic material from other.

A few of the Bt crops include cotton, brinjal, corn, etc. When an insect feeds on the transgenic plants, the toxic cry protein present in the plants crystallizes the digestive system of insects that leads to the death of the organism. However, it has no harmful effects on the human digestive system.

Genetically modified corn is purposely altered so that the crop can achieve specific goals for a farmer, the producers of the product, and society in general. It’s the next evolution of what has been practiced for centuries. The goal is to create a better, healthier, and more useful product.

The toxin they’re talking about is an insecticidal protein produced by Bt bacteria whose gene was inserted into the corn’s DNA to create so-called Bt corn, which has been incorporated into animal feed. If it’s mainly in animal feed, how did it get into the women? They suggested it may be through exposure to contaminated meat.

Bt corn reduces the need for pesticides, and while the primary benefit comes largely during a heavy corn-borer infestation, an unpredictable event, a secondary effect is that beneficial insects fare much better under these conditions. The numbers are particularly impressive for Bt cotton: the spraying of almost 2 million pounds of pesticides.

At present, foodstuffs made from genetically modified plants, especially corn, soy, and canola, are commonly sold in the United States. Most processed foods in the U.S. contain genetically modified organisms. There is insufficient evidence at this point to say definitively whether these foods are safe or are health hazards.

GM Bt maize reduces yield loss to Lepidopteran and Coleopteran insect pests. Delaying adoption of GM crops presents risks to humans and environment.

Herbicide-resistant soybeans and corn (maize), for example, can be “weeded” with herbicides that are more effective, less toxic, and cheaper than the alternatives. Cotton and corn have been modified to incorporate Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) genes, producing proteins that are toxic only to larval pests.

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Non-Bt Maize is also planted alongside Bt maize fields to provide refuges for the insects, which helps to prevent resistance to Bt maize from evolving. Hutchison et al. (p. (222)(1); see the Perspective by (Tabashnik)(2) ) analyzed how Bt maize affected the economic impact of the European corn borer moth in the midwestern United States, as well as its population dynamics.