Biotechnology: Transgenic Cotton

The genetic manipulation of plants has been going on for centuries, but now speedy genetic engineering can replace the slow tedious process of cross-breeding distinct varieties. There are several ways of genetically manipulating a plant, including: infecting the plant with a plasmid carrying the gene, and shooting microscopic pellets containing the desired gene directly into the plant cell. There is no real distinction between somatic and germ line cells in plants, this makes it easier to genetically manipulate plants than animals(http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/T/TransgenicPlants.html).

The complicated gene manipulating procedures of the cotton plant are done for a variety of reasons. Insect resistance (Bt) is produced by the Monsanto company to control tobacco bud worm and cotton bollworm. Glyphosate (roundup) tolerance has also been developed by Monsanto to increase cotton's resistance to herbicides. With glyphosate, a cotton field can be completely sprayed with roundup, and a minimal amount of the cotton plants will die, if any. Bromoxynil (BXN) tolerance has also been produced by Monsanto for the same purpose as glyphosate. Sulfonylurea (SU) tolerance has been developed by DuPont also for herbicide resistance. 25% of the cotton population was transgenic in 1997, the percentage jumped to 45% a year later (http://filebox.vt.edu/cals/cses/chagedor/cotton.html). In 2007 the percentage of transgenic cotton crops ranged from 100% in Arkansas and Tennessee, to 71% in California (http://www.ams.usda.gov/cottonrpts/MNPDF/mp_cn833.PDF).


Higher crop yields, improved nutritional value, salinity resistance, decrease in pesticide and fertilizer use, decreases in tilling and other farm labor are just some of the positive aspects of using bioengineered crops. However, destruction of native crop diversity and possible consequent native crop failure has led to farmer suicide in some cases. Monsanto released a transgenic variety of cotton into several southern India states. Coupled with debt and drought, 70 farmers committed suicide - their deaths are being blamed on the biotechnology company Monsanto (http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2003/Monsanto-Indian-Farmers11sep03.htm). Some countries will not even accept genetically modified foods. Starving African countries have denied our aid because the corn we offered was genetically modified. Genetically modified foods have their positives and negatives; but they are here to stay, so we should find a middle ground of perhaps growing them in a nature friendly manner.