Biotechnology includes a broad range of technologies applied in crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, and agro-industry.
They are used for many different purposes, such as the genetic improvement of plants and animals to increase their yields or efficiency; characterization and conservation of genetic resources for food and agriculture; plant and animal disease diagnosis; vaccine development; and production of fermented foods.
Key facts
Biotechnology is much more than GMOs. It encompasses a wide range of traditional and cutting-edge technologies
Knowledge of DNA markers was applied to develop a flood-tolerant rice variety used by three million farmers in India in 2012
Over one million embryos were transferred to recipient females worldwide in 2011, mostly for cattle improvement but also in horses and small ruminants
Genetic modification and the resulting products, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), continue to be at the centre of a long-running polarized debate
GM crops have been grown commercially since the mid 1990s
FAO's role in biotechnology
Agricultural biotechnologies are being applied to an increasing extent in crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture and agro-industries, to alleviate hunger and poverty, assist in adaptation to climate change and maintain the natural resource base.
They have not sufficiently benefited smallholder farmers and producers and consumers. More research and development of agricultural biotechnologies should be focused on the needs of smallholders. In order to produce food in a sustainable way for an additional 2 billion people by 2050, a business-as-usual approach will not be sufficient.
This is especially true in the face of climate change and other forces threatening natural resources like biodiversity, land and water that are essential for food production and agriculture, including forestry and fisheries.
To meet these challenges, science and the application of biotechnologies as well as conventional technologies will play a key role.