Additionally, economics and societal perception also did not favour biodiversity until recent times. From the late 1980s, sensitivity toward the environment was emerging in Hungarian society. People's fear of the negative effects caused by intensive agricultural production, paralleled with emerging local initiatives and NGO activities led to a re-evaluation of land use and rural development. Since its inception c. 10,000 years ago, agriculture has been a major agent of environmental change and of biodiversity loss. This continues today and population increase by 2020, estimated to be about 45 percent of the present level of 5.7 x 109, will heighten pressure on agricultural systems to both intensify and expand.
Expansion can occur only at the expense of the world s remaining ecosystems.
Ironically, these trends parallel advances in biotechnology that rely on the very genetic resource that agricultural expansion destroys. The exploitation of crop gene pools, especially those of the wild relatives of established crops, the exploration of genetic resources in general for the discovery of new agricultural chemicals and the genetic manipulation of domesticated animals are biotechnology s primary goals. The objectives are to develop new and improved crop traits, improved livestock and environmentally-benign agricultural chemicals. It facilitates direct tillage and reduces the likelihood or severity of soil erosion. Through the genetic engineering of insecticide production in crops there is less need for agrochemicals.