Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–April 8, 2013. Given the rise of target plant and animal pests that resistant to the tactics of the biotechnology industry, companies that produce genetically engineered (GE) crops have begun producing plants with âstackedâ traits. For herbicide resistant crops, this means adding traits that incorporate crop resistance to increasingly dangerous and toxic chemicals, such as 2,4-D, a major component in the Vietnam-era herbicide Agent Orange. For crops engineered to produce their own natural insecticide, namely the toxin Bacillus thuringiensis, this means adding new formulations of the bacterium. Although this practice is widely considered acceptable and effective by the biotechnology industry, a new study from the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, published in the journal PNAS, casts doubt on this assumption.
