I n her seminal work, Silent Spring, Rachel Carson writes: ‘‘If Darwin were alive today the insect world would delight and astound him with its impressive verification of his theories of survival of the fittest. Under the stress of intensive chemical spraying the weaker members of the insect populations are being weeded out.’’ (1) Evolution of insecticide resistance in 400 species of insects no...

The adoption of transgenic crops (also called GMOs and biotech crops) worldwide has been rapid and impressive, reaching 120 million ha in 2008, and continues to grow at a steady pace (James, 2008). Approximately 80% of the total area devoted to these crops has been planted with herbicide-resistant crops, virtually all being glyphosate-resistant (GR) crops. Thus, a single genetic trait—glyphosat...

Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) is an important fiber crop in Pakistan with significant economic importance. Transgenic, insect-resistant cotton (carrying a gene from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt)) was inducted the cotton-based cropping systems of during 2002, and now sown >90% fields country. However, concerns are rising that Bt would decrease productivity winter crops (sown after cotton), lea...

Introduction Adventitious presence deserves discussion to understand whether farmers engaged in conventional, organic, and transgenic agriculture can coexist as neighbors using known and practical agronomic practices. When a farmer buys and sows certified seed of his or her chosen crop variety, the crop starts with the highest degree of purity deemed commercially achievable, which then becomes ...

The potential environmental risks of cultivating transgenic crops have been the subject of much publicly funded research, which often seems to have increased controversy about transgenic crops, rather than assisted decision-makers. This stems from an ecological method of research that has several characteristics that limit its usefulness to decision-makers: a reluctance to define problems in re...

BACKGROUND Genetically modified crops (GM crops) have been developed to improve the agricultural traits of modern crop cultivars. Safety assessments of GM crops are of paramount importance in research at developmental stages and before releasing transgenic plants into the marketplace. Sequencing technology is developing rapidly, with higher output and labor efficiencies, and will eventually rep...

With the rapid advancement of transgenic biotechnology, large numbers of transgenic crops have been produced and released for commercial cultivation (James, 2001), raising considerable biosafety concerns all over the world. One of the major issues is the potential ecological risk resulting from transgenes escaping into and persisting in the environment. The extensive on-going debate on this iss...

Vitamin A Deficiency (VAD) has been a public health problem among children in developing countries. To alleviate VAD, Vitamin A Supplementation (VAS), food fortification, biofortification and nutrition education have been implemented in various degrees of success with their own merits and limits. While VAS is the most widely utilized intervention in developing countries to ease the burden of VA...

Transgenic crops producing insecticidal toxins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) are widely used to control pests, but their benefits will be lost if pests evolve resistance. The mandated high-dose/refuge strategy for delaying pest resistance requires planting refuges of toxin-free crops near Bt crops to promote survival of susceptible pests. We report that pollen-mediated gene flow up to 31 m f...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS With the advent of transgenic crops, genetically modified, herbicide-resistant Brassica napus has become a model system for examining the risks and potential ecological consequences of escape of transgenes from cultivation into wild compatible species. Escaped transgenic feral B. napus and hybrids with compatible weedy species have been identified outside of agriculture and ...