Biotechnology and Sustainable Agriculture: Policy Alterinatives

摘要

Major fundamental advances in molecular and cellular understanding of biology, particularly since the 1960s, have generated a new technology referred to as biotechnology. However, biotechnology--the use of an organism or its product(s) as a product or a process--is a centuries-old technology. Humans have selected, improved, and used organisms and their products for decades: yeasts for bread, wine, and cheese making, domesticated animals and crops for agriculture and food, antibiotics, insulin and other natural therapeutics for health care; and microorganisms for waste treatment and mining. The above examples may be referred as to the old, established or traditional biotechnology in which we have a great deal of familiarity and much favorable experience.