Biotechnology can potentially better manage this evolution in resistance. In May 1999, Nature magazine published a letter from researchers at Cornell University that reported findings suggesting further research is needed into the relationship between pollen from select strains of Bt corn and the monarch caterpillar. Since that publication, many university researchers, including others at Cornell, have stepped forward to stress that the monarch study did not represent natural conditions. Extensive environmental research has confirmed the safety of Bt corn on non-target insects, such as the ladybird beetle, honeybee and the green lacewing, in the natural environment. More recent studies have suggested that any effect on monarch butterflies from biotech plants is less than the effect of traditional chemicals sprayed to control weeds along roadsides or on crops.
Biotechnology can help alleviate hunger world-wide.
In the next 50 years the global population is expected to double, reaching more than 8 billion people by 2050. Population growth and diet upgrading will require the food supply to increase by at least 250 percent from its current quantity. Although forests could be cleared to obtain needed acreage, a better approach is to find ways of getting greater crop yield from existing land. Plants from biotechnology can deal with these hardships and dramatically increase the percentage of crops that survive and are harvested each year. From years of research, we know that the benefits of food biotechnology are tremendous.