[Editor’s note: Pamela Ronald is plant pathologist and geneticist. She is a professor in the Genome Center and the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California Davis.]
Eggplants are the most important vegetable crop in Bangladesh, India. Serious pests in the region have the ability to destroy an entire eggplant crop, so farmers fight back by heavily spraying insecticide. Many of these insecticides are unregulated and very dangerous, resulting in illness and death to those who come in contact with the chemicals. Pamela Ronald explains in this episode of Startalk (a podcast hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson) how Bangladeshi and Cornell scientists teamed together to fight pests by developing GMO eggplants.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Genetic engineering saved the Bangladeshi eggplant industry
