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Biotechnology is the application of scientific techniques
to modify and improve plants, animals, and microorganisms to enhance
their value. Agricultural biotechnology is the area of biotechnology
involving applications to agriculture. Agricultural biotechnology
has been practiced for a long time, as people have sought to improve
agriculturally important organisms by selection and breeding. An
example of traditional agricultural biotechnology is the development
of disease-resistant wheat varieties by cross-breeding different
wheat types until the desired disease resistance was present in
a resulting new variety.
In the 1970s, advances in the field of molecular biology provided
scientists with the ability to readily transfer DNA — the
chemical building blocks that specify the characteristics of living
organisms - between more distantly related organisms. Today, this
technology has reached a stage where scientists can take one or
more specific genes from nearly any organism, including plants,
animals, bacteria, or viruses, and introduce those genes into another
organism. This technology is sometimes called genetic engineering.
An organism that has been modified, or transformed, using modern
biotechnology techniques of genetic exchange is referred to as a
genetically modified organism (“GMO”). Actually genetic
modification has been around for hundreds if not thousands of years,
since deliberate crosses of one variety or breed with another result
in offspring that are genetically modified compared to the parents,
and hybrid crosses result in progeny with genetic combinations of
closely related species.
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