Biosecurity

The Pentagon Wants to Create a Bioengineered Insect Army to "Protect Crops"

The Pentagon is studying whether insects can be enlisted to combat crop loss during agricultural emergencies.

The bugs would carry genetically engineered viruses that could be deployed rapidly if critical crops such as corn or wheat became vulnerable to a drought, a natural blight or a sudden attack by a biological weapon.

The concept envisions the viruses making genetic modifications that protect the plants immediately, during a single growing season.

The program, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has a warm and fuzzy name: 'Insect Allies'. But some critics find the whole thing creepy.

A team of skeptical scientists and legal scholars published an article in the journal Science on Thursday arguing that the Insect Allies program opens a "Pandora's box" and involves technology that "may be widely perceived as an effort to develop biological agents for hostile purposes and their means of delivery".