Question

What is the potential of biotechnology in sustaining agriculture? 

Answer 1

The potential of biotechnology in sustaining agriculture is:

1. Declining soil fertility: It is perhaps the single biggest challenge to sustainable agriculture in developing countries. Unless it is rectified the prospects for meeting the increasing demands for food production and the desired levels of income generation for the future are very bleak.
2. Stress tolerance in crops: This has always been important in agriculture; however, it has gained even greater importance in developing countries during the past decade or so. Climatic variability has increased and with it the depredations of drought, heat, waterlogging and new, or exacerbated, pest and diseases. The competition for water for agriculture is of critical importance and farming-systems and crop varieties that have enhanced water-use efficiency are essential. New technologies have a key role to play in achieving better water use either in irrigated or rainfed systems.
3. Biofortification: It is a recently invented term to describe the nutrient enrichment of basic food crops through modern plant breeding, both traditional and molecular. Modem plant breeding is one of the cheapest, most effective and sustainable ways of supplying needed nutrients through enrichment of staple food grains.