My name is Rick Helmich. I'm a research entomologist with the Agricultural Research Service
and my main job right now is to evaluate the safety of biotech crops.
I've been doing this for about eighteen years.
I'm really interested in the topic of biosafety, of
genetically modified crops
because in most cases I think we'll be able to show
that that these crops are actually safer
than the crops that we, that we have,
that they're replacing.
One of the main benefits of biotechnology crops
is we're actually finding that we get increased biodiversity
especially if you compare
with uh... regular crops
that have been sprayed with insecticides.
I had a colleague who used to work in Mississippi.
He said when he walked into the cotton fields,
ten or fifteen years ago,
that there was complete silence.
There was no biodiversity there.
Now with with BT cotton,
because we have lot fewer insecticides,
there is biodiversity. You hear the insects. You hear that the birds are
around the fields, which I think is pretty positive.
There are many advantages to biotech crops. For example,
insecticides have been reduced in BT corn
by substantially... by about one-third.
And also we find that the, there's a
reduced micro-toxins. These are
toxins associated with the molds in corn.
And we're also finding that uh...
there's population reduction of some of the main pests -- for example, European
corn borer -- which benefits both BT farmers and non-BT farmers.
One of the main questions we have about the biosafety
is this: are they as safe as the products they're
uh... replacing.
And we do an environmental risk assessment
prior to the commercialization of the biotech crops. They're
thoroughly tested on a case-by-case basis
and in most cases what they do is they take the proteins or whatever the
product is and they put it into the food
of an insect or of an earthworm, or whatever it is that they want to test
to see if it's safe.
And overwhelmingly the uh...
the tests show that these products are safe.
And these biotech crops are safe because
in a lot of cases they're very specific.
They have a target
that is very narrow so, unlike the
broad-spectrum insecticides, we're zeroing in on
a specific insect.
And because of that they turn out that they're a lot
better for the environment.
The tests that we use to test the biotech crops
have been developed by biosafety scientists from across the world,
and they have been standardized so that they can be repeated
in different, different laboratories.
When we do an environmental risk assessment, in addition to
insects, there are other organisms that are tested -- such as earthworms,
fish, birds, mammals --
to make sure that there aren't any effects.
Basically, the biotechnology crops have been tested
more than any other crop in the history of agriculture.
The environmental risk assessment of these crops have been very thorough,
and not only are we not finding
negative effects, we're finding positive effects.
Especially when we compare
crops that have been sprayed with insecticide, we're finding that there's
increased biodiversity,
which is, which is a very good benefit.
I grew up in an agricultural community in Indiana,
and when I was a boy I always used to walk around in the fields and in the creeks.
So I appreciated biodiversity at a very early age.
So it's important for me to work in this area and
to try to come up with products that actually, that help the environment.