TRANSGENICCROP

Description

Transgenic crops now represent a substantial portion of major crops globally (12% of cotton, 58% of soybeans, and 23% of corn planted in 1998). Most of the acreage in transgenic crops is in the United States (68%), Argentina (23%), and Canada (7%), and almost all of it is planted in herbicideresistant crops (74%).Modification of the plant genome may be used to achieve a variety of objectives: resistance to insects, drought tolerance, and so on, which have long been pursued by “classical” plant breeding approaches, but the combination of genetic modification techniques, rapid throughput screening, and combinatorial chemistry has made it more opportune formajor companies to strengthen and diversify their investment in pest control.