I’m Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Agriculture
Report.
The Biotechnology Industry Organization, or BIO, held its
2006 international convention earlier this month in Chicago. It says attendance set
a record with more than nineteen thousand people from 62 countries.
BIO represents more than one thousand companies and other organizations. Its
members genetically engineer products in health care, agriculture and other
areas.
The convention included former President Bill Clinton and what the organizers
called the world's largest indoor cornfield.
Jose Manuel Pomar is a farmer from the Aragon area of
Spain who attended the convention. Mr.Pomar grows Bt maize. Bt maize contains a
gene from a bacterium that produces a poison. This poison helps the plants
resist insects, especially the maize borer.
Some things do not change with biotech crops. Mr. Pomar says he uses the
same amount of fertilizer with Bt maize as he does with conventional corn.
The main difference, he says, is in the use of insecticide. Mister Pomar says
he sprays his conventional maize with insect poisons three to four times a
season. With Bt maize, he says, he might spray once if maize borers are present
in large numbers.
Chemicals are costly. The savings help pay for the higher cost of the biotech
seeds.
Mister Pomar says his profit on Bt corn is fifteen to twenty percent higher
than his conventional maize. He also says he harvests more.
He grows about two hundred hectares of Bt maize for animal food.
This is only a part of his cropland. He also grows 350 hectares of non-Bt
maize. And he grows alfalfa, soybean and other crops.
In all, Mr. Pomar has 1200 hectares of farmland. Most
of his crops are not biotech. But some people do not like that he uses
genetically engineered crops at all. He says people have complained to him. And
he worries about possible legal issues in the future.
Still, he says many other farmers in his area grow some biotech crops. The
Spanish farmer says he is pleased with his results. He says the added profits
could be important if the European Union cuts farm aid in the coming years.
Next week, we talk to two American farmers who grow biotech maize and cotton.
This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by Mario Ritter. Read
and listen to our reports at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
maize borer
: 玉米螟
