 With
the time passing, the earth's resources are decreasing. The earth's capacity to
continue providing clean air and water, productive soils and a rich diversity of
plant and animal life isn't as before, but it's moving in an opposite direction.
Population growth is already straining the earth's resources. One of the few
certainties of the future that the world's population will nearly double,
reaching almost 10 billion inhabitants by the year 2030. This pushed us to find
the solution for this and there was no other than agricultural biotechnology to
be the desired solution and the hope for us.
Experts assert that using biotechnology in agriculture will triple crop yields without
requiring any additional farmland, saving valuable rainforests and animal habitats.
Also, it can reduce or eliminate reliance on pesticides and herbicides that may
contribute to environmental degradation.
In the past, the humankind has made improvements to crop plants through selective
breeding and hybridization, the controlled pollination of plants. Then with the
discovery of the DNA and the possibility of cutting a specific piece of it and stick
it in another DNA thread, the agricultural biotechnology took place in the world
of agriculture.
the difference between agricultural biotechnology and the traditional plant breeding
is that the agricultural biotechnology allows the transfer of a greater variety
of genetic in a more precise, controlled manner.
For more explanation traditional plant breeding involves the crossing of hundreds
or thousands of genes, where as agricultural biotechnology allows the transfer of
only one or few desirable genes. This allows plant breeders to develop crops with
specific beneficial trait sand without undesirable traits.
So agricultural biotechnology allowed us to supply the crops
with desired traits that fight plants pets. insects, weeds and diseases not only
this but also supply it with traits that provide quality improvements, such as tastier
fruits and vegetables, processing advantages such as tomatoes with higher solids
content, and nutrition enhancements, such as oil seeds that produce oils with lower
saturated fat content.
To sum up, agricultural biotechnology is important to our life in the present and
the future and so we should try to improve this science and highlight it in order
to provide good living for people.
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 Already, crop biotechnology benefits society
by allowing farmers to grow high quality food more efficiently, with more consistent
yield and with reduced environmental impact. On this section you will know that
that there are a large number of beneficial applications still in development. Some
of these would be difficult to achieve using available "conventional" breeding techniques,
others would be impossible to
accomplish in any way other than genetic modification. As with any development process,
not all of these will come to fruition, but we believe many will.
Another thing with Genetically modified foods is that no matter how much critics
has argued on it, it still remains the best alternative to hunger. Genetically
modified foods on farms are generally pest resistance this is special ability
that could save the farmer lots of fortune and time. Also nutritionists have
confirmed the fact that Genetically modified foods carries about thrice the
nutritional contents as found on normal crops. Below is a chart illustrating the
nutritional content of maize compared to ordinarily produced once. (The
nutrients are plotted on the vertical) |
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 The term Genetically Modified foods or GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) is
most commonly used to refer to crop plants created for human or animal consumption
using the latest molecular biology techniques. These plants have been modified in
the laboratory to enhance desired traits such as increased resistance to herbicides
or improved nutritional content. The enhancement of desired traits has traditionally
been undertaken through breeding, but conventional plant breeding methods can be
very time consuming and are often not very accurate. Genetic engineering, on the
other hand, can create plants with the exact desired trait very rapidly and with
great accuracy. For example, plant geneticists can isolate a gene responsible for
drought tolerance and insert that gene into a different plant. The new genetically-modified
plant will gain drought tolerance as well. Not only can genes be transferred from
one plant to another, but genes from non-plant organisms also can be used. The best
known example of this is the use of B.t. genes in corn and other crops. B.t., or
Bacillus thuringiensis, is a naturally occurring bacterium that produces
crystal proteins that are lethal to insect larvae. B.t. crystal protein genes
have been transferred into corn, enabling the corn to produce its own pesticides
against insects such as the European corn borer.
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