Synergies and trade-offs of biotechnology and climate smart agriculture: review

Abstract

The unwise utilization of any technology has negative impacts on either economy, environmental sustainability, socio-culture, or in combinations. Many scholars argue that biotechnology is a cause for biodiversity loss (reduces genetic diversity), causes deforestation due to genetically modified crops, human health problem (cancer), and disrupting the integrity of natural biota. Equally, others argue that biotechnology is a fortunate to conserve biodiversity via gene bank, improve crop yield, reduces use of pesticides, improves human health (pharmaceutical value), and reduces wastes in the environment. Whereas, climate-smart agriculture aims to enhance food security via increased productivity and income, resilience and adaptive capacity to climate change, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve this goal, it is better to use biotechnology in a very limited amount to reduce the tradeoffs between them.