This one has some obvious benefits: researches have been able to engineer a breed of corn that can survive long periods of water deprivation. A couple different varieties are on the market and already in use, and the one sold by Monsanto, called DroughtGard, added the same gene that bacteria use to continue growing in cold environments.
Blight-Resistant Potatoes
Late blight has long been the bane of potato farmers’ existence; the fungus-like pathogen was responsible for the Irish potato harvest being decimated in the 1800s. Ireland’s agricultural agency, Teagasc, has been hard at work developing a potato that’s been genetically modified to resist blight, and once it’s tested and approved, it could do away with the plague that destroys about a fifth of the world’s annual potato harvest.
Virus-Resistant Papaya
Papaya ringspot virus has historically seriously lowered yields of papaya crops, and throughout the 1990s researchers worked to develop a cultivar that was resistant to it. In 1999 the first virus-resistant papayas were grown in Hawaii (they elicit an immune-like response to the virus), and today they’re approved for consumption in both the U.S. and Canada.
The Bt bacteria has also been effectively worked into the DNA of eggplant, which sees up to 40 percent of yearly crop loss due to a pest called the “fruit and shoot borer.” The natural insecticide has been found to be non-toxic to fish, chickens, rabbits, goats, rats, and cattle.
Virus-Resistant Squash
The second GE crop to be cleared by U.S. regulators (after papaya), a breed of squash called Freedom II was engineered to be resistant to two viruses. Today six varieties of virus-resistant squash and zucchini are being sold in the U.S.
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