Homework assignment

After reading the text below write an Essay with the title: USE OF BIOTECHNOLOGY IN
SEED PRODUCTION AND PLANTING MATERIAL

Biotech Seeds
Plant Biotechnology in Focus

Biotechnology improves seeds available to farmers, providing them with new ways to combat
weeds, insects and other agronomic challenges, and produce more food, feed and fuel to better
meet customer needs. Biotechnology helps make agriculture more sustainable – both
economically and environmentally.

Seeds are the basis for all plant life on earth. For millennia, mankind has worked to continually
improve the seeds we use to grow crops that feed and nourish our communities and improve our
lives. Plant biotechnology is yet another step in the journey to improve agricultural production
and feed our changing world.

But before a farmer plants a biotech seed in the ground, it undergoes many tests in the lab and
regulatory approvals to assure it’s safe. Creating a new biotech trait, bringing it to market and
obtaining global approvals is a process that usually takes between seven and 10 years from start
to finish.

Early seed experimentation

Ten thousand years ago, the earliest farmers, living in the Fertile Crescent of countries
surrounding the Nile River, the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf, worked to find the seeds that
grew the hardiest crop. They discovered some seed types from the wild grains produced more
plentiful harvests. They began selecting these types (today we call them varieties) and began
cultivating them every season which ultimately led to the establishment of thriving stable
communities, ending the nomadic lifestyle which was previously driven by a search for food.

Early genetic adaptations of seeds

Over the past 150 years, researchers have built on the earliest farmers’ knowledge to better
understand the importance of plant genetics to develop stronger and more vibrant crops. By
identifying crops with desired traits such as better nutritional characteristics or greater tolerance
to drought and using selective breeding, they have developed improved plants that are healthier,
more resilient, and capable of producing greater yields.
Genes under the spotlight

Today, seed research is highly sophisticated. In the lab, scientists work carefully to identify the
specific genes responsible for traits that make crops tastier, more nutritious, heartier or more
tolerant of drought, pests, floods, pesticides, or saline environments. Scientists learn about the
genes comprising individual seeds by grinding, shaving or chipping off a small bit of it for
analysis. The genes contained in those small seed fragments are studied in the lab while the rest
of that seed is planted and observed under growing conditions. This allows researchers to study
the gene map for the actual plant that is growing. The resulting individual plants that display
useful traits can now be matched to the genes identified in the lab.

Moving genes between plants

Once the genes carrying the beneficial traits have been identified, the next step is to insert them
into the plant. Modern genetic researchers use a revolutionary technique developed by Marc Van
Montagu of the University of Ghent. Montagu’s method utilizes agrobacterium, natural bacteria
that can pass on genes to plants. The agrobacterium acts like an automobile, with the genes as its
passengers. The genes are attached to the agrobacterium and carried into the seed, where they
integrate with the rest of the plant’s genetic material. This technique, known as horizontal gene
transfer, is a natural evolution from the plant breeding pioneered by Mendel and other
researchers. Mendel’s breeding techniques were often imprecise, with thousands of genes
transferred in each experiment. Modern plant biotechnology, however, can achieve precise
transfers of as small as a single gene.

Testing times for seeds

After planting in the lab, biotech seedlings are moved to greenhouses, where further tests will be
performed in a controlled environment. To ensure a biotech seed offers maximum farm benefits
and that there are no unintended effects, hundreds of thousands of plants will be grown and
studied over several years. Only after rigorous tests for the safety and reliability of the biotech
trait are complete, will the top performing plants be selected to produce the crop that will be
made available to farmers around the world.

Into the Field

The development phase of a biotech crop is lengthy, but produces significant benefits for farmers
once complete. Over the past 17 years, tens of millions of farmers in approximately 30 countries
worldwide have grown 1.7 billion hectares of biotech crops. The crops have enabled these
millions of growers to improve their incomes and help meet rising food demand as populations
grow. This has resulted in improved farms, families and rural communities, all while protecting
our natural environment.
Time, money and care

Each year, millions of farmers around the world plant biotech crops for higher yields, improved
crop quality and the ability to use sustainable farming practices such as no-till. However,
bringing these innovative new traits from the lab to the field requires a tremendous investment of
time and resources. On average, it takes more than 13 years and $136 million dollars to bring a
biotech crop to market, with the majority of time and resources spent meeting regulatory
requirements of government agencies. Ensuring regulations are clear, predictable and efficient is
essential for farmers to receive the benefits of biotech crops in time to meet the growing
challenges agriculture faces.

Sophisticated seeds for our changing world

Plant biotechnology is just the latest evolution in mankind’s never-ending quest to improve how
we produce an abundant and safe food supply. Just as our farmer ancestors chose their best plants
to produce the next year’s crops, traits in today’s biotech seeds enable farmers to produce better
harvests on less land than ever before, all while protecting the environment around us. Continued
research and the application of biotechnology will be essential in developing varieties of seeds
that can not only survive but also maintain high yields in harsher environments. This is even
more critical as our warming world experiences more frequent droughts, floods and higher
temperatures. Future biotech traits that enable crops to thrive in drought conditions or provide
greater nutrition to children offer agriculture powerful tools with which to face these coming
challenges

The most prominent example of biotech in soybeans are herbicide-resistant varieties which
have contributed to a significant increase in weed control. This allows farmers to almost
completely eliminate plowing on their fields, resulting in better soil health, improved water
retention and decreased herbicide runoff for improved water quality, according to the United
Soybean Board’s The Benefits of Biotechnology report. The U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service found that 93 percent of U.S soybean acreage
planted was herbicide-resistant .“Every country and the European Union has its own process to
approve both the cultivation and the import of product containing a trait that has been produced
using biotechnology,” said Laura Foell, chair of the United Soybean Board (USB) Global
Opportunities program and a soybean farmer.
Let’s take a look at that process using the high-oleic soybean trait as an example. High-oleic
soybean varieties contain a biotech trait that was approved domestically in the last few years and
is currently undergoing approval processes in multiple countries. This soybean oil offers a
healthy alternative for many food applications, such as baking and frying.
Industry leaders, including soy checkoff farmer-leaders, were the first to identify the food
industry’s need for an improved soy oil. Scientists acted on this idea by identifying several
specific genes that, inserted into soybean DNA, could create their desired results. Next, they grew
plants containing the trait in a lab-controlled environment, where extensive research was put into
crossing it with high-performing varieties and testing it for performance, yield and safety.
Once scientists proved the high-oleic soybean trait could be part of successful and productive
varieties, it underwent the rigorous domestic approval process to assess potential risks to human
health and the environment. USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) share
oversight of biotechnology experimental testing, approval and eventual commercial release.

Sources used:

https://croplife.org/a-seed-story/

https://croplife.org/biotech-crop-development/

https://www.unitedsoybean.org/article/the-birth-of-a-biotech-trait