There are also several diseases that are a threat to U.S. cows which have not yet appeared in the United States. There are very limited opportunities to do research on such diseases in the United States because you don't want to introduce them here. On the plant side, Brazilian entomologist Miguel Borges is working at the Insect Chemical Ecology Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, looking for ways to control stink bugs, a soybean pest in both Brazil and the United States. In particular, he is trying to determine whether genetically modified soybeans release the same semiochemicals as traditional soybean varieties to attract insects that parasitize stink bugs. Semiochemicals are chemicals released by one species to attract or repel another.
Brazil is ahead of the United States in some aspects of insect biocontrol on farms.
We understand today that we must learn together because what we have is really one global environment. One oddity that Borges' colleague ARS entomologist Jeffrey R. Aldrich has noted is that parasitic insects native to the United States prefer to attack exotic species, including certain stink bugs from Brazil, something Borges and Aldrich hope to investigate further. Aldrich is especially interested in working with Brazil because insects there are much more similar to those in the United States than those of Europe or Asia are. Brazilian agronomist Ariovaldo Luchiari has been taking advantage of the season reversal between the United States and Brazil to double his data collecting as he evaluates indicators to measure stress in corn and soybeans as part of improving precision agriculture management systems. Precision agriculture systems depend on gathering specific data in a repeatable fashion from the soil and crops, using equipment connected to global information and global positioning systems.