Biotech crops and functional genomics

Abstract

The increase in human population, poor performance of crop cultivars under increasingly adverse environmental conditions and a decline in the available land for sustainable crop production are contributing to a shortage of global food supply and increase in its demand. Conventional breeding efforts in crops such as rice over the last three decades have resulted in a doubling of agricultural productivity (Khush 1997). However, for sustained increase in the agricultural productivity, crops which can resist pests, pathogens and tolerate salinity, drought and temperature extremes need to be developed and deployed.