Bt rice - benefit (Apr/21/2011 )

what is actually bt rice and its benefit??
is the bt rice safe for children use??

bt is often used in crops like maize, in rice less.

And is it bad? normally not...

And what is it? bt is a protein made by Bacillus thuringiensis that kills certain insects.


Look up Bacillus thuringiensis, Cry toxin.... bt crops..

You should be able to get some more information and if you have more specific questions, you can always ask.

In rice it's also for bio-synthesising beta-carotene, as additional Vitamin A source: "Golden rice".
Bt varieties are still in development, if I'm right. If it's finally licensed and marketable, it will quite specifically act against certain insect groups (orders). For rice presumably lepidopteran pests.
And if it's good, depends who you ask...it's very controversial. (I'm not a fan of this stuff, especially if from Monsanto).

actually i have an assignment on this topic..
i should give 10 minute speech about bt rice benefits and convince audience about these bt rice..
based on my reading,
i'm understand that bt rice is uses of cry genes to control insect pest.
the benefit from bt rice are saving in term of cost and environmental protection due to reduce chemical pesticide..
am i right??
if i'm not mistaken i have read about bt toxin can cause heavy metal leak into soil?? is it right?

hobglobin on Thu Apr 21 11:56:59 2011 said:

But golden rice isnt the same as bt rice... You can have rice that is both.. but do they use bt rice as a synonym for golden rice??

Bt rice = the bt gene

golden rice = genes to have more vitamine A in rice.....

Or am I missing something huge here?



And hobglobin: btrice is very very different from rice that has for example a gene to break down round up. Here you still spray pesticides (and reseach has shown even more then before)
But the bt gene is another story: its not a gene to break down a certain pesticide.... It works because those insects have an alkaline stomach and thus the bt protein gets active (in acid stomach it doesnt work).

This is a major difference...

intan on Thu Apr 21 14:07:44 2011 said:

Yes.

Because farmers do not need to spray as much pesticides as before: the rice (the btgene product) kills some insects itself.. So its good.


So the issue here is not about the pesticides (this is better due to bt) the issue here is if modifications are ok...

cross contamination with wild plats for example..
Or resistance against it if you use it too often (animals adapt too..)

The bt protein is only active at a high pH, as the environment in the stomach of an insect. And it is not active in our low pH stomachs and therefore can not harm us

well...golden rice i think is different here...

bt genes as members said goals to minimize using the bad pesticides..so helping the environment being more clean

yes...it could be safe in terms of feeding...but what about the reactions of other organisms in the same habitat..insects!?

what about humans!?

i think it's still early to decide...so controversial

Sure Golden rice is different, i.e. a different gene was added...it was just another example for GM rice.
Anyway if Bt is harmful or not to mammals the opinions are quite different, and there were also several studies with results showing health risks for rats and other organisms (though I've no idea how reliable or biased the results are).

For other insects also occurring on fields with GM crops, there were no effects found, when they preyed on insects that feed GM crops (i.e. natural occurring enemies such as predators and parasitoids). Non-target lepidoptera also occasionally feeding on GM crops will be affected (larvae), though I guess it will not harm the populations. If adult butterflies feed on pollen of GM crops, the results are different, but mostly negligible too, the Monarch issue was quite exaggerated.

But if other insects are generally not affected, this is also a problem, as one or two species are suppressed (here the target lepidoptera), but then new pests arise that make pesticide use necessary again. An example is the Bt cotton with successful suppression of cotton bollworm and the now occurring secondary pests such as mealy and mirid bugs....and Bt does not act against bugs...

Other issues that are problematic is outbreeding (no idea if it's a problem in rice) and socio-economically issues, i.e. one company takes over the seed delivery and all farmers depend on this, small-scale farmers who cannot afford the new seeds are displaced finally. Together with a huge diversity of local seeds (that are good adapted to local environmental conditions and pests). India is a good example here. But this is a social and economical problem, not a scientific one.