Biotechnology refers to any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms or derivatives there of to make or modify products or processes for specific use. In practice it is as old as the growing the crops. Today’s biotechnology is largely identified with the applications in medicine, agriculture based on our knowledge of the genetic code of life. Fermentation, used in making bread, beer and cheese, is an example of biotechnology. Modern biotechnology can be used to slow down the process of spoilage so that fruit can stay fresh longer on the plant and then be transported to the consumer with a still reasonable shelf life. More importantly, it could expand the market for farmers in developing countries due to the reduction in spoilage. It has the potential to assist farmers in reducing on-farm chemical inputs and produce value-added commodities. Different types of crops have been produced using the molecular tools of biotechnology and are beginning to be utilized in agricultural systems all over the world. The first genetically modified food product was tomato which was transformed to delay its ripening. Today there is a novel plant called ‘Pomato’ developed artificially by a cross between a tomato and potato plant thus a new plant can yield potato and tomato on the same plant!!!
March 10, 2010
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL