Use of biotechnology in agriculture

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The gene revolution which came after the green revolution in 1980 is one of the most vital driving forces in the Indian agriculture sector through which a new era of transgenic and molecular plant breeding has started and today even after 40 years there are still many unopened doors in the field of biotechnology both in India and all over the world where It can contribute a lot to solve emerging problems in agriculture.


The use of biotechnology in agriculture is now a necessity and not an option if we need to move towards a modern and sustainable form of agriculture as well as its allied enterprise. From crop production to crop protection and food processing and even in improving the nutritional value addition (Biofortification) we have seen the major role play by biotechnology. Let us discuss all these in brief to understand the role played by biotechnology

Crop production – Due to the rapid increase in population both nationally and globally the deforestation and urbanization is inevitable which also cause a decrease in the agriculture land and the only possibility to feed the population is through increasing productivity while maintaining the soil health and reducing the chemical input , to solve all these we need high yielding, stress (biotic and abiotic) tolerant variety which is difficult to develop by traditional breeding method and here biotechnology provide much faster technique like r-DNA transfer both within plant as well as between plant and animal to have the desired genotype and to increase both quality as well as quantity of desired crop.

Crop protection – The increasing incidence of herbicide resistant herb and pesticide resistant pest reduce the scope of pest management by chemicals and demand the inherent resistance through which plant will be able to protect itself from the pest. Biotechnology has contributed in the field of crop protection as we have example of Bt COTTON have inherent resistance to cotton bollworm and now it is cultivated on a major area in textile industry.




Biofortification – The production GMO food crops like golden rice contributed lot in our fight against malnutrition and to eliminate the evil like hidden hunger. Golden rice is genetically modified in order to produce beta carotene which is not normally produced in rice. Beta carotene is converted into vitamin A when metabolized by humans improving the vision standard and also contributing to the immune system.

                                                                      

The application of biotechnology is not only limited to field and horticulture crops but also to enterprises like poultry and livestock where Layer hens produced more eggs and broilers have more meat content, the Australian cows have more lactation (milk production) than any other due to massive use of biotechnology apart from this even in biofuel production we are trying to incorporate biotechnology to reduce the environmental pollution.


So we might have millions of models to solve the modern world problems ranging from environment to economy but the need of the hour is to have new way of thinking to tackle these challenges and agriculture biotechnology is also one of them , which if use judiciously and within limit can contribute to human welfare.

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