Daily News Channel
For farmers hoping for a healthy harvest, the best place to turn for help these days is the Monsanto Corp. One of the world’s leading biotechnology companies–and lately a pioneer in genetically engineered seeds–Monsanto has been incorporating flashy traits like herbicide and pest resistance into everything from canola to corn.
A British consortium pledged Tuesday to spend up to £10 million ($14.5 million) in research grants to find out what is causing a serious decline in bees and other pollinating insects. Those insects — including honey bees, bumble bees, butterflies and moths — play an essential role in pollinating many vital crops, but their numbers have been declining steadily in recent years, scientists say. In the United Kingdom alone, the number of pollinators has fallen between 10 and 15 percent in the past two years, according to the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC), a government-sponsored research group.