After reading this, you should be able to outline some of the reasons why farm safety and health professionals need to be familiar with these topics now and in the future. I will focus on applications related to crop production. Many people believe that biotechnology applications in farming will be a force as great or greater than the adoption of mechanization was for production agriculture in the early half of the 20 th century. It is an issue we will need to know at least something about. In recent years, many people have interchanged the terms biotechnology and genetic engineering.
Genetic engineering is one specific technique within the science of biotechnology.
Transferring a gene is done so that the plant or animal expresses a desirable trait. Below are a couple of examples from each of these categories representing genetic engineering applications within crop production. All the weeds die, but the crop is left unaffected. The corn plants produce a protein crystal substance that is toxic to many types of damage-causing insects. But, the tomato stays firm between the field and supermarket.