A proposed impact assessment method for genetically modified plants (AS-GMP Method).

An essential step in the development of products based on biotechnology is an assessment of their potential economic impacts and safety, including an evaluation of the potential impact of transgenic crops and practices related to their cultivation on the environment and human or animal health. The purpose of this paper is to provide an assessment method to evaluate the impact of biotechnologies that uses quantifiable parameters and allows a comparative analysis between conventional technology and technologies using GMOs. This paper introduces amethod to performan impact analysis associatedwith the commercial release and use of genetically modified plants, the Assessment SystemGMPMethod. The assessment is performed through indicators that are arranged according to their dimension criterion likewise: environmental, economic, social, capability and institutional approach. To perform an accurate evaluation of the GMP specific indicators related to genetic modification are grouped in common fields: genetic insert features, GMplant features, gene flow, food/feed field, introduction of the GMP, unexpected occurrences and specific indicators. The novelty is the possibility to include specific parameters to the biotechnology under assessment. In this case by case analysis the factors ofmoderation and the indexes are parameterized to perform an available assessment.

Avaliação dos riscos alimentares e ambientais: estudo de caso da soja geneticamente modificada utilizando o método GMP-RAM.

A avaliação da segurança é essencial para a pesquisa e desenvolvimento das plantas geneticamente modificadas (PGMs), incluindo a análise dos riscos potenciais do plantio ou das práticas relacionadas ao seu cultivo para o meio ambiente e seus efeitos para a saúde humana e animal de maneira comparativa com a variedade convencional. O emprego do método GMP ? RAM (Risk Assessment Method for Genetically Modified Plants), a primeira metodologia para avaliação caso a caso dos riscos de PGMs, possibilita a adoção de medidas para evitar ou controlar tal risco. A possibilidade de inserir indicadores específicos para a avaliação da PGM em questão e a necessidade de elaborar a lista de recomendações a partir dos resultados levantados permite uma análise caso a caso do evento. Neste trabalho, foi realizado o estudo de caso da segurança alimentar e ambiental da Soja Roundup Read, que evidenciou a inexistência de risco potencial desde que medidas de manejo e monitoramento sejam seguidas.

Estudo de caso da avaliação dos riscos alimentares e ambientais da soja geneticamente modificada - método GMP-RAM para avaliação caso a caso dos riscos de plantas geneticamente modificadas.

A avaliação da segurança é essencial para a pesquisa e desenvolvimento das plantas geneticamente modificadas (PGMs), incluindo a análise dos riscos potenciais das plantas ou das práticas relacionadas ao seu cultivo para o meio ambiente e efeitos para a saúde humana e animal de maneira comparativa com a variedade convencional. O método GMP ? RAM (Risk Assessment Method for Genetically Modified Plants), é a primeira metodologia para avaliação caso a caso dos riscos de PGMs, a partir desta análise, possibilita a adoção de medidas para evitar ou controlar tal risco. A possibilidade de inserir indicadores específicos para a avaliação da PGM em questão e a necessidade de elaborar a lista de recomendações a partir dos resultados levantados permite uma análise caso a caso do evento, neste trabalho foi realizado o estudo de caso da segurança alimentar e ambiental da Soja Roundup Read.

Field-oriented assessment of agricultural crops through temporal segmentation of modis VI data.

Monitoring agricultural crops constitutes a vital task for the general understanding of land use spatio-temporal dynamics. This paper presents an approach for the enhancement of current crop monitoring capabilities on a regional scale, in order to allow for the analysis of environmental and socio-economic drivers and impacts of agricultural land use. This work discusses the advantages and current limitations of using 250m VI data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) for this purpose, with emphasis in the difficulty of correctly analyzing pixels whose temporal responses are disturbed due to certain sources of interference such as mixed or heterogeneous land cover. It is shown that the influence of noisy or disturbed pixels can be minimized, and a much more consistent and useful result can be attained, if individual agricultural fields are identified and each field's pixels are analyzed in a collective manner. As such, a method is proposed that makes use of image segmentation techniques based on MODIS temporal information in order to identify portions of the study area that agree with actual agricultural field borders. The pixels of each portion or segment are then analyzed individually in order to estimate the reliability of the temporal signal observed and the consequent relevance of any estimation of land use from that data. The proposed method was applied in the state of Mato Grosso, in mid-western Brazil, where extensive ground truth data was available. Experiments were carried out using several supervised classification algorithms as well as different subsets of land cover classes, in order to test the methodology in a comprehensive way. Results show that the proposed method is capable of consistently improving classification results not only in terms of overall accuracy but also qualitatively by allowing a better understanding of the land use patterns detected. It thus provides a practical and straightforward procedure for enhancing crop-mapping capabilities using temporal series of moderate resolution remote sensing data.

Assessment of heavy metals in soils of a vineyard region with the use of principal component analysis.

Agricultural management with chemicals may contaminate the soil with heavy metals. The objective of this study was to apply Principal Component Analysis and geoprocessing techniques to identify the origin of the metals Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn, Ni, Pb, Cr and Cd as potential contaminants of agricultural soils. The study was developed in an area of vineyard cultivation in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Soil samples were collected and GPS located under different uses and coverings. The metal concentrations in the soils were determined using the DTPA method. The Cu and Zn content was considered high in most of the samples, and was larger in the areas cultivated with vineyards that had been under the application of fungicides for several decades. The concentrations of Cu and Zn were correlated. The geoprocessing techniques and the Principal Component Analysis confirmed the enrichment of the soil with Cu and Zn because of the use and management of the vineyards with chemicals in the preceding decades.