Frank Kariuki

Prd 2
Mr. Mizrahi

BIOTECHNOLOGY
Agricultural biotechnology is any technique in which living organisms, or parts of
organisms are altered to make or modify agricultural products, to improve crops, or
develop microbes for specific uses in agricultural processes. In todays world, genetic
engineering is considered part of agricultural biotechnology. Genetic manipulation and
transformation is now possible even on the worlds major crops.
In plant transformation,genes are inserted into the genetic structure or genome of
plants. The two most common methods of plant transformation are Agrobacterium and
Biolistic Transformation. Agrobacterium is using naturally occurring bacterium to insert
genes into the genetic structure . Biolistic Transformation is the use of mechanical
means to insert genes into the genetic structure. Another way is altering the
chromosome. Chromosome is the self-replicating genetic structure of cells, containing
genes, which determines inheritance of traits. Chemically, each chromosome is
composed of proteins and a long molecule of DNA. Biotechnology is necessary to meet
the demands of consumers in the 21st century .
Like everything else, agricultural biotechnology has its benefits and
disadvantages. one major benefit of agricultural biotechnology is that it has increased
food production in the world. Also the food quality has increased over time thanks to
agricultural biotechnology. Many new crop varieties have been developed and made
available to U.S. farmers and farmers worldwide. 88 percent of the corn, 94 percent of
the cotton, and 93 percent of the soybeans planted in the U.S. were varieties produced
through genetic engineering in the year of 2012.A large proportion of the production of
other crops, such as alfalfa, and papaya, and sugar beet, is also biotech-derived.
Another benefit of biotechnology is that due to it, the generous amount of food donated
by United States to other countries can be maintained. The U.S helps a lot of 3rd world
countries with food like corn and wheat among others.
One of the disadvantages of biotechnology is use of synthetic pesticides. They
are harmful to humans and pollute groundwater and the environment. But some steps
are taken to improve the safety of using pesticides. So in conclusion, agricultural
biotechnology ha benefits that outweigh the negative. It has enabled mass production of
higher quality food for America and the rest of the world but it has its risks.