Biotechnology In Agriculture

The use of technology in biological things in order to produce goods and services is known as biotechnology. Agriculture is only one of the many industries that have profited from biotechnology. To increase agricultural productivity, crop output, and quality, agricultural biotechnology uses techniques from tissue culture, molecular biology, and genetic engineering.

Farmers in traditional agriculture used artificial selection to improve the characteristics of crops and animals. This approach includes picking out plants or animals that display desirable features and combining them with other people who share those characteristics. New cultivars with higher yields, more disease resistance, and other desirable characteristics may eventually result from this process.

Biotechnology In Agriculture

Biotechnology is a rapidly expanding field that is currently applied in a variety of other industries. When we talk about biotechnology’s function in agriculture, it is a combination of biology and technology that is employed to generate unique hybrid and improved genetic organisms.

Biotechnology in agriculture might be defined as the manipulation of various plant species utilising biotechnology-created instruments, unique insecticides, and pesticides that do not affect the plants in the same way that traditional chemical pesticides do. Even the crop’s overall product is often adjusted to produce a more developed crop that is easy to harvest and has essential nutritional advantages. Much current biotechnology includes genetic engineering, which is what the field is all about. Three strategies for increasing food production can be considered: 

• agro-chemical-based agriculture
• organic agriculture
• genetically altered crop-based agriculture

The Green Revolution tripled the food supply, yet it was not enough for the world’s rising population. Improved yields have resulted in part from the adoption of improved crop types, but primarily from better management practises and the use of agrochemicals (fertilisers and pesticides). Unfortunately, agrochemicals are frequently too expensive for farmers in the developing world, and additional increases in yield with existing varieties are not attainable through traditional breeding. A viable solution is to use genetically engineered crops.

Genetically Modified Crops

GMOs are creatures, including plants, bacteria, fungi, and mammals, whose genes have been purposely altered using methods of genetic engineering. While some people are concerned about genetically modified organisms, these creatures have been developed for a variety of objectives and have proven to be helpful in a variety of ways.

One of the most important advantages of genetic modification is that it has made crops more immune to abiotic conditions including cold, drought, salt, and heat. As a result, farmers can now cultivate crops in formerly unsuitable agricultural areas due to unfavourable climatic circumstances.

Furthermore, genetic modification has resulted in the production of pest-resistant crops, reducing the need for chemical pesticides, which can have negative impacts on the environment and human health. This has also helped to reduce post-harvest losses, which were a major issue in the past owing to crop rotting and contamination during storage and transit. GMOs have increased the efficiency with which plants use minerals, preventing soil fertility from being depleted prematurely. This is especially important in locations where the soil is deficient in nutrients, and it has considerably improved agricultural productivity.

The improvement of food’s nutritional value is one more advantage of GMOs. A rice species that have been genetically altered to have high quantities of vitamin A, which is crucial for human health is called Golden Rice.

Bt Cotton

Cotton’s resistance to diseases and insects is one of the most recent and significant developments. Insects used to eat up the whole cotton plant at night, destroying the crop field, but thanks to innovative technology, resistant cotton varieties are now available that kill insects as soon as they come into touch with the plant. The fact that it won’t harm people while still being efficient against the specific insect that feeds on cotton is its strongest feature. One of the most well-known examples is Bt Cotton. When Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is given to plants, it gives the plants resistance to pests like bollworms and maize borers.

Pest Resistant Plants

Many nematodes parasitize a wide range of plants, animals, and even people. The roots of tobacco plants are infected by the nematode Meloidogyne incognita, which significantly reduces production. A unique approach based on the RNA interference mechanism was used to stop this invasion (RNAi). All eukaryotic species use RNAi as a form of cellular defence. With this technique, a particular mRNA is silenced by a complementary dsRNA molecule that binds to it and inhibits the mRNA from being translated.

This complementary RNA may have originated from an infection with a virus with an RNA genome or from mobile genetic elements (transposons) that replicate using an intermediate RNA.

Nematode-specific genes were inserted into the host plant using Agrobacterium vectors. DNA was introduced in a way that caused the host cells to create both sense and anti-sense RNA. The complementary nature of these two RNAs resulted in the formation of a double-stranded (ds) RNA, which started RNA interference and silenced a particular nematode mRNA. As a result, the parasite was unable to thrive in a transgenic host that was expressing a particular interfering RNA. As a result, the parasite was shielded from the transgenic plant.

FAQs on Biotechnology in Agriculture

Question 1: What is Biotechnology in Agriculture?

Answer:

Biotechnology in agriculture refers to the use of biology and technology to generate unique hybrid and improved genetic organisms, including the manipulation of various plant species using biotechnology-created tools, unique insecticides, and pesticides that do not harm the plants in the same way as traditional chemical pesticides.

Question 2: How has Genetic Modification improved Crops?

Answer:

Genetic modification has made crops more immune to abiotic conditions such as cold, drought, salt, and heat, allowing farmers to cultivate crops in formerly unsuitable agricultural areas. It has also resulted in the production of pest-resistant crops, reducing the need for chemical pesticides, and helped to improve the efficiency with which plants use minerals, preventing premature depletion of soil fertility.

Question 3: What is Bt cotton?

Answer:

Bt cotton is a variety of cotton that has been genetically modified to contain the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which gives the plant resistance to pests like bollworms and maize borers. Bt cotton is an effective and safe alternative to chemical pesticides, as it targets specific pests without harming other organisms or the environment.

Question 4: What is Golden Rice?

Answer:

Golden Rice is a rice species that have been genetically modified to contain high levels of vitamin A, an essential nutrient for human health. This genetically modified crop is an example of how biotechnology can improve the nutritional value of food and help combat nutrient deficiencies in developing countries.