While the last 50 years of agriculture have focused on meeting the food, feed, and fiber needs of humans, the challenges for the next 50 years go far beyond simply addressing the needs of an ever-growing global population. In addition to producing more food, agriculture will have to deal with declining resources like water and arable land, need to enhance nutrient density of crops, and achieve these and other goals in a way that does not degrade the environment. Biotechnology and other emerging life sciences technologies offer valuable tools to help meet these multidimensional challenges. This paper explores the possibilities afforded through biotechnology in providing improved agronomic “input” traits, differentiated crops that impart more desirable “output” traits, and using plants as green factories to fortify foods with valuable nutrients naturally rather than externally during food processing. The concept of leveraging agriculture as green factories is expected to have tremendous positive implications for harnessing solar energy to meet fiber and fuel needs as well. Widespread adaptation of biotech-derived products of agriculture should lay the foundation for transformation of our society from a production-driven system to a quality and utility-enhanced system.
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