Category Archives: GM Crops

Shelton shares national award for Bt crop research

[From cornellcals.tumblr.com]

Congratulations to Tony Shelton, professor of entomology, who is part of a team of leading experts who will be honored with an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Team Award from the Entomological Foundation. This annual award is presented to a collaboration that meaningfully contributes to pest control efforts using IPM practices. Dr. Shelton¹s and his fellow collaborators, known collectively as the ³Risk Assessment of Bt Plants on Beneficial Non-target Arthropods (NTA) IPM Team,² focused on the environmental risk assessment of Bt crops, which are genetically engineered to protect themselves from insects. The team is credited with developing a science-based framework for assessing the potential risks of Bt proteins on beneficial insects, or NTAs, with the goal of increasing the environmental safety of Bt crops and similar crops in the future. This work, including the team¹s analysis of data from lab and field studies around the world, has shown that Bt crops in use now do not cause unexpected harm on beneficial predators or parasitoids. Their analysis also showed that reductions in insecticide applications made possible by Bt-transgenic varieties have clear benefits on insect abundance in general and natural enemies in particular.

The award will be presented at the meeting of the Entomological Society of America in Austin, Texas, in November.

Tony Shelton discusses global pesticide decline due to adoption of Bt crops

Jan 21 2013 – Tony Shelton was interviewed about the global decline of insecticide and pesticide use due to cultivation of biotech-driven crops in India’s third largest English language newspaper, “The Hindu.”  For more information click here.

ICE 2012 in South Korea

At the International Congress of Entomology (August 19-24) in South Korea we will be presenting 2 symposia:

1.  Section 10-3: Integrated Pest Management
The role of present and future genetically-engineered insect-resistant crops in IPM              
Organizers: Anthony M. Shelton, Jörg Romeis, Yunhe Li
AND
2.  Section 8-3: Pesticides, GM Crops, Resistance and Toxicology
The effects of GM crops on non-target organisms
Organizers: Jörg Romeis, Richard L. Hellmich, Anthony M. Shelton