Applications of Transgenic Technologies

The application of transgenic technologies in plant biotechnology has the potential to exceed the technical advances that have taken place in previous ‘revolutions’ in production agriculture. It has only taken  years of commercial growth of transgenic crops in North America for 52% of the soybean, 30% of the maize and 9% of both cotton and canola grown in 1999 to be transgenic, with increasing production of a wide range of other transgenic crops such as rice, wheat, barley, sorghum, sugar cane, sugar beet, tomato, potato, sunflower, peanut, papaya, tree species and horticultural crops such as carnations. Major companies involved in commercialisation of transgenic crops and their alliances are given in Table .
Of the 69.5 million acres of transgenic crops grown (27.8 million hectares) in 1998, 74% were in the USA, 15% in Argentina, 10% in Canada and 1% in Australia. The transgenic traits grown commercially were dominated by herbicide tolerance (71%) and insect resistance (28%), with only 1% for the other traits. However, the transgenic plants currently being commercialised are the first generation of transgenic crops and three generations of transgenic

Table . Major companies involved in commercialisation of transgenic crops and their alliances .

crops can be envisaged:
- First generation – production traits (e.g. herbicide tolerance, insect/ disease resistance).
- Second generation – stacked genes for multiple traits (e.g. combinations of disease resistance genes plus quality traits).
- Third generation – varieties tailored for specific end uses (e.g. food, fibre, fuel, lubricants, plastics, pharmaceuticals and raw materials for industrial processes).
Already, the production of second-generation transgenic crops is in progress and some specific examples of applications are given in the following sections. However, to achieve the potential benefits of transgenic plant biotechnology, there are many additional factors to consider, which include regulation of biotechnology, intellectual property, food safety, public acceptance, allergenicity, labelling, choice, the environment,segregation of transgenic products and international trade.
The emphasis here is on application and potential benefits of transgenic technologies. As in any developing technologies, the aim is to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks.