With biotechnology, producers can provide a more abundant, better quality and more nutritious food supply to consumers.
Food biotechnology is based on age-old principles of selective breeding.
Farmers have used these processes for centuries to provide variety, improve taste and produce new or more healthful foods. Modern biotechnology allows food producers to do the same thing today, but with greater understanding and selectivity. Traditionally, when breeding plants to achieve hardier or healthier produce, farmers had to breed thousands of plants to obtain a desired trait. Modern biotechnology now allows us to focus on particular genes in plants, rather than the entire plant, and to identify and transfer the specific gene that governs a desired trait. This offers farmers a more precise way to produce plants and foods that possess certain beneficial characteristics.