Describe any five advantages of using biotechnology for agricultural development.
Answers
Answer:
We are often inspired by nature, from art and literature to engineering and medicine. The science of biotechnology also looks up to processes in nature to transform living systems and organisms and develop new (perhaps better) products out of them.
According to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, biotechnology is “any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use.
One of the earliest applications of biotechnology, in its simplest form, was in agriculture.
For centuries, farmers manipulated plants and animals through selective breeding in order to create and enhance desired traits. As the science of plant breeding was further developed, the 20th century saw a big change as we were able to more quickly pick out traits such as increased yield, pest resistance, drought resistance, and herbicide resistance. But our technology has since then moved even further, which resulted in first food product produced through plant biotechnology in 1990.
The growth of agricultural biotechnology, also known as agritech, was such that by 2003, seven million farmers were utilizing biotech crops, with more than 85% of these farmers located in developing countries .
Advantages of using biotechnology in agriculture :-
The use of biotechnology in the field of agriculture does not only allow for crops to grow more and under more difficult circumstances, it can literally make them better.
In other words, science allows us to introduce specific genes to increase the nutritional value of crops.
This has been attempted with rice, one of the world’s most eaten food, where scientists used genetic engineering to produce rice rich in vitamin A. What scientists noticed is that while rice already contains the genes that produce vitamin A, these get turned off as the rice grow; so what the scientists did was to reverse the process so that the vitamin A genes get activated during the growth .
As such, agritech can help in resolving hunger but also malnutrition. This is therefore not a solution we can afford to ignore when so many hundreds of people, many young children, suffer from malnutrition.
Proponents of agritech, however, believe that their technology can introduce truly sustainable farming practices and even reduce the environmental impact of agriculture.
For example, genetically modified seeds can have improved resistance to germination failure. This allows farmers to plant these seeds without having to till the soil, which is a practice that disturbs beneficial soil organisms, results in the loss of nutrients from soils by bringing them to the surface from where they get washed off by the rain, and releases carbon trapped in the soil organic matter.
What is more, supporters of agritech also believe that their technology can also reduce waste and optimize the food available to us in supermarkets.
This is because genetically modified produce can be given properties that allow it to be harvested when ripe but then the ripening process can be stopped which means consumers can have access to fresher produce with a longer shelf life.
This also minimizes the amount of food that could go back before even reaching retailers .
Answer:
Agricultural biotechnology is also known as agritech is the study that involves biotechnology to agriculture.
This study mainly concentrate on the use of tools and techniques that includes molecular makers, vaccines. Tissue culture and genetic engineering to modify and improve the value of existing plants and animals.
Uses of biotechnology in agriculture.
★It improves the value of existing plants.
★It improves the nutrition quality of a plant.
★It improves the production.
★It reduces diseases in plants.
★It reduced the costs on agriculture.
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