Agricultural Biotechnology: Potential for Use in Developing Countries

Abstract

Despite major advances in agriculture and strong growth in food production in the latter part of the twentieth century, hunger and famine are still common in many parts of the developing world. A combination of factors such as political instability and poor distributional infrastructure, together with prevalence of subsistence farming and consequent low farm incomes, have substantially impeded production and distribution of food commodities. Given that the world population is forecast to grow by 54 per cent from 6.1 billion in 2000 to around 9.3 billion people by 2050 and that all of the increase is forecast to occur in developing countries (United Nations 2001), the issue of food security is again becoming a topic of concern.