This benefits the environment while increasing yield and food quality. Viral protection for plants will help growers of watermelons, cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, alfalfa and squash, as it has already increased yield for papaya farmers. Many of today s fungicides, herbicides, insecticides and other pesticides are better, safer and more environmentally sensitive than older versions. Even so, they sometimes enter the air, soil and groundwater when they blow or wash off plants. Biotechnology can achieve many of the goals for which pesticides were designed, often more efficiently.
Farmers recognize more than anyone that healthy growing environments define their future.
Thus, they seek better ways to control weed with the least toxic herbicides available that do not damage food crops. They also strive to reduce their use of insecticides and fungicides, limiting their own exposure to the chemicals. And growers have strong economic incentives to reduce agricultural inputs thereby reducing their cost. Of the more than 80,000 species of edible plants known to exist, humans cultivate only about 300 of them. Of those, only about 12 have emerged as major staples.