1.   And if consumers and regulators here and abroad reject biotech crops, Monsanto and its multibillion-dollar investments would be devastated.

2.   Biotechnology critics fear the first generation biotech crops will eventually backfire by encouraging the development of even more devastating insects and weeds.

3.   A year ago his association released its own survey indicating that farmers were significantly scaling back from planting biotech crops.

4.   But researchers, including the authors, emphasized that the new findings did not mean that all biotech crops would be environmentally benign either.

5.   Food companies have not been required to have the FDA review new biotech crops.

6.   It is also preparing a global network of grain elevators and processing plants that would segregate and process biotech crops in a way that analysts hope will be profitable.

7.   Several major food companies have said they will no longer use genetically altered crops, and the European Union and Japan have restrictions on certain biotech crops.

8.   The adoption of biotech crops, though, has been nothing less than phenomenal.

9.   The new measures were viewed by many as an acknowledgment by the agency of the rising concern over the safety of biotech crops.

10.   The scientists on the panel are investigating a form of the biotech crops that have been genetically altered to produce their own pesticides.