Long Term Monitoring Shows That Planting Insect Resistant Transgenic Cotton Is Beneficial To The Ecological Environment

after Agricultural transgene The Biosafety Committee reviewed that the Ministry of Agriculture approved the commercial planting of transgenic insect resistant cotton for the first time in 1997. Since then, Chinese scientists have planted insect resistant cotton in different cotton regions Farmland ecology It has been tracking and monitoring the impact of natural environment for more than 10 years, accumulated a lot of first-hand data, and reached several clear conclusions:

（1） The damage of cotton bollworm and pink bollworm has been effectively controlled nationwide. Cotton bollworm and pink bollworm are the main pests in cotton production in China. In the past, cotton farmers needed to inject 10 to 20 times a year to control cotton bollworm. A large amount of drug use led to a series of problems such as increased costs for farmers, reduced profits, human and livestock poisoning, environmental pollution, reduced natural enemies, and resistance of pests to pesticides. After planting transgenic insect resistant cotton, the variety itself has good insect resistance effect. Generally, only two to five times of spraying is needed to effectively control these two main pests, not only cotton The amount of pesticide used on the soybean/corn/peanut was reduced by more than 70%, and the number of cotton bollworm on the soybean/corn/peanut was also significantly reduced.

（2） It provides good environmental conditions for natural enemies and beneficial insects, and farmland biodiversity is more abundant. As the damage of pesticides to natural enemies and beneficial insects of pests has been reduced, the number of natural enemies and beneficial insects of pests such as ladybugs/lacewings/spiders and parasitic wasps has increased several to several hundred times, and the biodiversity of insect resistant cotton fields and their surrounding areas is more abundant and diverse, which is conducive to farmland environmental protection.

（3） Integrated pest management techniques have been developed. With the effective control of major pests and the significant reduction of pesticide consumption, the population number of secondary pests has changed, which is mainly reflected in the reduction of aphids and the increase of the number of mirids. Focusing on the cultivation and management of insect resistant cotton, timely killing weeds and transferring hosts, and rational use of low toxic pesticides can ensure a good harvest of cotton.