Discover magazine has named a Cornell international research project as one of its Top Six Environment Stories of 2006 and the 30th most important science story of the year.

The research found that Chinese farmers use just as much pesticide to raise cotton seven years after they began planting genetically modified (GM) cotton to resist bollworm infestations.

The Cornell-led research, presented in July, was the first study to look at the long-term impact of GM cotton and found that although the modified cotton is resistant to leaf-eating bollworms, after seven years, populations of other insects -- such as mirids -- had increased so much that farmers were having to spray their crops up to 20 times a growing season to control them. The study was based on interviews with 481 Chinese farmers in five major cotton-producing provinces.

The research was conducted by Per Pinstrup-Andersen, the H.E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition and Public Policy at Cornell, and the 2001 Food Prize laureate; Shenghui Wang, Ph.D.'06, an economist with the World Bank; and David Just, Cornell assistant professor of applied economics and management, in conjunction with the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy and the Chinese Academy of Science.