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In this article we will discuss about the benefits of biotechnology on crops.
Farmers have relied for centuries on the newest technology to produce and enhance foods that possess specific beneficial traits. Biotechnology offers farmers a more precise way to accomplish these goals. The use of biotechnology benefits not only the grower, but also the consumer. Growers reap higher crop yields, while consumers have greater product choices year round.
Current benefits of biotechnology include:
1. Disease resistance
2. Reduced pesticide use
3. More nutritious composition of foods
4. Herbicide tolerance
5. More rapid growth of crops
6. Improvements in taste and quality.
Some of the products that have been enhanced through biotechnology are:
1. Corn, soybeans, and cotton that require fewer applications of herbicides/pesticides
2. Soybeans that are lower in saturated fats, and higher in oleic acid, offering better frying stability
3. Virus-resistant papayas that make crop production more dependable
4. Peppers improved to be tastier (sweeter) and remain firmer after harvest
5. Potatoes and corn that are disease-resistant and produce a higher yield.
The volume of biotech crops in development continues to grow. Biotechnology has been used in a number of crops for several years, and more genetically enhanced products are expected to be on the market in the coming years.
Benefits that can be expected in the near future include:
1. Reducing levels of natural toxins, such as allergens, in plants
2. Providing simpler and faster methods to locate pathogens, toxins, and contaminants.
3. Extending freshness.
Products that could be on the market in a few years as a result of these developing benefits include:
1. Oils, such as soybean and canola oils, developed to contain more stearate, making margarine and shortenings more healthful.
2. Peas grown to remain sweeter and produce higher crop yields.
3. Smaller, seedless melons for use as single servings.
4. Bananas and pineapples with delayed ripening qualities.
5. Peanuts with improved protein balance.
6. Fungus-resistant bananas.
7. Tomatoes with a higher antioxidant (lycopene) content than current varieties.
8. Fruits and vegetables containing higher levels of vitamins such as C and E to potentially protect against the risk of chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease.
9. Garlic cloves that produce more allicin, possibly helping to lower cholesterol levels.
10. Higher-protein rice, using genes transferred from pea plants.
11. Strawberries that contain increased levels of ellagic acid, a potential cancer fighting agent.
12. Peppers, strawberries, raspberries, bananas, sweet potatoes, and melons that are enhanced for better nutrition and quality.
13. Strawberries with higher crop yields and improved freshness, flavour, and texture.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the current world population is about six billion and projected to grow to about nine billion by 2050. Few other technologies will be able to approach biotechnology’s potential to help avoid starvation in this century. By increasing a crop’s ability to withstand environmental factors, growers will be able to farm in parts of the world currently unsuitable for crop production.
Along with additional food, this could also provide the economies of developing nations with much needed jobs and greater productivity. Biotechnology will also enable growers to produce further enhancements in plant varieties. This would allow for the possibility of increasing the agricultural gene pool that billions of people rely on for basic foodstuffs.
Another economic and environmental benefit is seen in the area of fertilizer use. Almost half of the $12 billion American farmers spend each year on fertilizer simply evaporates or washes away. As a result, much of the fertilizer used is wasted and can end up in water sources, damaging the environment. Some plants, such as corn, might be improved to draw nitrogen from the soil, thereby reducing the need for fertilizer.
Products we can expect to see further down the road include:
1. Enhanced protein quality in corn and soybeans (increased levels of lysine and methionine for improved animal feed).
2. Modification of acid production in potatoes, allowing potato plants to withstand frost.
3. Rice that grows faster, is richer in protein, and can better tolerate drought and acidic soils.
4. Rice enriched with vitamin A that may reduce incidence of blindness in developing countries.
Even under the best of conditions, food production for hundreds of millions of Americans — and billions more around the globe —can take a toll on the environment. Erosion can claim precious topsoil; farm chemicals sometimes reach streams, rivers, and groundwater supplies; and livestock can deplete grazing lands.
Wetlands and other sensitive habitats sometimes get ploughed under for use as farmland. And in the world’s tropical forests where an estimated 90 per cent of the world’s species exist, poor farmers clear trees in order to provide food and a living for their families.
By improving many aspects of modern agriculture, biotechnology can help alleviate many of these pressures on the land, both by preserving natural resources and by reducing environmental stresses.
Many of today’s fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, and other pesticides are better, safer, and more environmentally sensitive than older versions. Even so, they sometimes enter the air, soil, and groundwater when they blow or wash off plants. Biotechnology can achieve many of the goals for which pesticides were designed — often more efficiently.
Farmers recognize more than anyone that healthy growing environments define their future. Thus, they always seek better ways to control weeds with the least toxic herbicides available that do not damage food crops. Farmers also would like to reduce their use of insecticides and fungicides, limiting their own exposure to the chemicals. Growers have strong economic incentives to reduce agricultural inputs.
Erosion of topsoil due to wind and water can be cut by more than 70 per cent—in some cases up to 98 per cent— when farmers use no-till techniques, meaning they do not plough under weeds and crop residues after harvesting or before planting. Eager to protect their soil, American farmers have flocked to no-till farming.
Acres committed to no-till reached nearly 53 million in 2000. Herbicide- tolerant canola, cotton, and soybeans allow improved weed control, and therefore have enabled greater use of soil conservation farming practices.
As much as 75 per cent of American corn and soybean crops each year are eaten by farm animals. Anything that makes animals better able to digest their food will diminish the overall need for feed, without diminishing the animals’ productivity.
Other feedstock-related benefits of biotechnology include:
1. Improved protein quality by balancing amino acids, thereby reducing nitrogen in waste.
2. Reduced environmental impact of phytate in animal waste.
3. High-oil corn that results in high energy density, therefore resulting in more meat per ton of feed.
Even though the Earth’s atmosphere contains about 78 per cent nitrogen, most crops have no mechanism to use this natural nitrogen. As a result, farmers depend on added fertilizers to provide the nitrogen necessary to boost crop yields. But crops only use about 50 per cent of the more than 60 million pounds of nitrogen fertilizers added to them each year.
The excess nitrogen can cause environmental problems in soil and water. Growers have long recognized and used the innate abilities of legumes like soybeans to “fix” nitrogen, which means to use the natural nitrogen in the soil and air.
These natural nitrogen fixers replenish the nitrogen supply in the soil from which they were harvested. Breeders desire to develop other crops that can “fix” their own nitrogen, putting such plants high on researchers lists.
Should breeders succeed in creating the “self-fixers,” they would:
1. Allow farmers to decrease their use of synthetic fertilizers while maintaining bountiful yields.
2. Result in less nitrogen from fertilizers remaining in the soil or running off into the water.
3. Greatly enhance productivity in many regions of the developing world where farmers cannot afford nitrogen fertilizers.
Corn and soybeans can become natural factories for production of ingredients like sucrose, lysine, and methionine that are used for animal feed. These crops would essentially be recyclable and biodegradable and replace industrial factories, thus reducing stress on the environment.
Of the more than 80,000 species of edible plants known to exist, humans cultivate only about 300 of them. Of those, only about 12 have emerged as major staples. Through genetic enhancement, crop breeders can: Increase the use of plant species by using biotechnology to discover which genes of value reside in which plants and then transfer those genes into crops now in use around the globe.
1. Expand the genetic variation in staple crops by breeding into them desirable traits from previously unavailable sources. This will not affect the relatively narrow genetic lineage of many crops in the near term. Longer term, it will significantly expand the gene pool used in modern agriculture and thus reduce the relatively low, but real, risk of crop failures.
2. Expand many wild relatives of modern crop plants that might be threatened with extinction.
3. Finally, enable scientists to learn what important genes are actually contained in the millions of plant specimens housed in gene banks around the world.