Since Transgenic Cotton Has Disadvantages, Why Should We Promote Transgenic Cotton

It starts with one thing. In 1990, a large area of insect pests broke out in the cotton producing areas of North China, and the cotton bollworm became the main pest. At that time, farmers had to apply pesticides every three days, and from the beginning of a single pesticide to the later use of three pesticides, the cost of pesticides per mu was more than 150 yuan, which was very high in the 1990s, Let cotton farmers basically no profit. Moreover, due to the frequent use of pesticides, many cotton farmers queued up to the township health center for infusion, but the resistance of the cotton bollworm is getting higher and higher, to the point that it can not be eliminated. Therefore, the cotton farmers go to the fields to catch the insects with little effect. So the first batch of transgenic cotton also began to enter China, which is also known as Bt cotton. However, China has a foresight, and did not promote this cotton in a large area, but developed its own transgenic cotton. The same is transgenic cotton, the method is basically the same, so China's genetically modified cotton can not avoid the shortcomings of Bt cotton, then you may be confused, why should we promote transgenic cotton? There are several reasons:

 

1. Transgenic cotton has obvious advantages. The yield of transgenic cotton is indeed higher than that of non transgenic cotton, which is beyond doubt. Compared with its disadvantages, the yield can offset its disadvantages. Moreover, transgenic cotton is indeed resistant to insect pests. China's traditional cotton has suffered many large-scale cotton boll pests (which are rarely seen in India). Long-term drug use has made the pest resistant to insecticides, and it is impossible to solve the problem with pesticides. At that time, in North China, where traditional cotton was planted, because of the excessive use of pesticides and the high cost, large-scale cotton farmers abandoned their seeds, As a result, many local policies can not make cotton farmers change their minds, because people are doomed to lose their money. So we tried to popularize transgenic cotton, which has high yield and is resistant to boll pests, so that cotton farmers can benefit again. They started to replant. Although there will be secondary pests, we can at least eliminate these pests with less pesticides. So it's also harmful. If we can't avoid it, we should choose the one with less harm.

 

2. The seed safety of genetically modified cotton is at hand. Unlike India, the seeds of genetically modified cotton are developed by ourselves. Therefore, our cotton farmers will not be sold at a high price by Monsanto, just like India. Our cotton farmers will buy seeds with lower price, lower cost and higher income. Moreover, our transgenic seeds are constantly updated and iterated, The advantages are more and more obvious, and the disadvantages are gradually being overcome.

 

3. Transgenic cotton is the trend of the future, transgenic cotton has shortcomings, but in the process of continuous promotion, it is still developing better seeds, we can not give up because of shortcomings. Both traditional cotton and genetically modified cotton have their own advantages and disadvantages. After years of promotion and analysis, we believe that transgenic cotton is better than traditional cotton, so transgenic cotton has been widely promoted. Now more than 95% of China's cotton is transgenic cotton, which is one of the reasons why China's output can rapidly surpass that of the United States and India.

 

Conclusion: the success of planting transgenic cotton in China is because we have mastered the technology, so the cost of cotton farmers is lower. The reason why India failed is that all seeds are imported at high prices, and pesticides have to be bought from the United States, and the profits are made by American companies. How can we not fail. In the future, more genetically modified crops will appear. China holds an open attitude towards this. However, we will conduct a strict review to ensure the safety. We will popularize it in a large scale just like non transgenic crops. Therefore, there is no need for you to talk about genetically modified crops.