Transgenic Crops: An Option for Future Agriculture

Transgenic Crops and the Future of Agriculture

One of the frustrations and joys of science is that we try to be objective, to offer hypotheses and test them, and to discover, to the extent of which we are capable, what is true and what is not true. It would be a serious mistake to claim that science is not affected by its context, as the case of Galileo Galilei illustrates so dramatically! Importantly, however, science does not in itself in...

Transgenic Crops: Implications for Biodiversity and Sustainable Agriculture

The potential for genetically modified (GM) crops to threaten biodiversity conservation and sustainable agriculture is substantial. Megadiverse countries and centers of origin and/or diversity of crop species are particularly vulnerable regions. The future of sustainable agriculture may be irreversibly jeopardized by contamination of in situ preserved genetic resources threatening a strategic r...

Transgenic Crops: An Environmental Assessment

New Crops for Canadian Agriculture

The designation “new crop” may be applied to virtually any useful plant that in some respect is new. The following categories of newness (which are not all mutually exclusive) are economically important in discussing new crops: (1) gathering new wild crops from nature; (2) cultivating an undomesticated plant not previously grown; (3) domesticating (changing genetically) an undomesticated plant;...

Transgenic Crops for Herbicide Resistance

A year after the introduction of the first commercial transgenic crop (Flavr SavrTM tomato with a longer shelf life) in 1994, transgenic, herbicide-resistant crops (HRCs) were introduced (Table 3.1) with the introduction of bromoxynil(3,5dibromo-4-hydroxybenzonitrile) resistant cotton and glufosinate[2-amino-4(hydroxymethylphosphinyl)butanoic acid] resistant canola. Bromoxynil resistance had li...