By Katie Aikins, Arizona Farm Bureau: True or False: Biotech crops are created through the use of conventional breeding, genetic markers and biotechnology?

True. The initial plant may have relied on biotechnology to insert the protein or gene, but the crop is then grown using conventional breeding techniques. Think about broccoli- completely man made, but created through conventional breeding…think hybrids.

The  majority of cotton grown in Arizona is biotech cotton. Arizona cotton farmers will tell you that they've been able to dramatically reduced their use of pesticides because of the biotech cotton. 


In Arizona, our main biotech crops are alfalfa, cotton and corn. Arizona Farm Bureau provides a web-page full of resources on biotechnology in Agriculture. 

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