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Agricultural biotechnology, also known as agritech, is an area of agricultural science involving the use of scientific tools and techniques, including genetic engineering, molecular markers, molecular diagnostics, vaccines, and tissue culture, to modify living organisms: plants, animals, and microorganisms. [1]
Land area used for genetically modified crops by country (1996–2009), in millions of hectares. In 2011, the land area used was 160 million hectares, or 1.6 million square kilometers. [54] In the US, by 2014, 94% of the planted area of soybeans, 96% of cotton and 93% of corn were genetically modified varieties.
Genetically modified plants have been engineered for scientific research, to create new colours in plants, deliver vaccines, and to create enhanced crops. Plant genomes can be engineered by physical methods or by use of Agrobacterium for the delivery of sequences hosted in T-DNA binary vectors .
Genetically modified crops (GM crops) are genetically modified plants that are used in agriculture. The first crops developed were used for animal or human food and provide resistance to certain pests, diseases, environmental conditions, spoilage or chemical treatments (e.g. resistance to a herbicide).
Since the early 1980s, genetically-modified crops have been incorporated. Increased biotechnological work calls for the union of biology and chemistry to produce improved crops, a main reason behind this being the increasing amount of food needed to feed a growing population. [16]
Half of all GM crops planted were genetically modified soybeans, either for herbicide tolerance or insect resistance. Eleven countries grew modified soybean, with the USA, Brazil and Argentina accounting for 90% of the total hectarage. Of the 111 hectares of soybean grown worldwide in 2014, 82% was genetically modified in some way.
The U.S. GM cotton crop was 4.0 million hectares, the second largest area in the world, followed by China with 3.9 million hectares and Pakistan with 2.6 million hectares. [6] By 2014, 96% of cotton grown in the United States was genetically modified [ 7 ] and 95% of cotton grown in India was GM. [ 8 ]
HarvestPlus, a major NGO in the development of biofortified crops, primarily use conventional breeding techniques, and have not yet spent more than 15% of their research budget on genetically modified crops when conventional methods fail to meet nutritional requirements. [5] [6] Golden rice is an example of a GM crop developed for its ...