Increasing a plant's ability to withstand environmental factors can expand a product's geographical growth range. By building into plants better tolerance to droughts, floods, salts, metals, heat, and cold, marginal land can be made available for agriculture. Growers will be able to plant crops in areas that are now considered unsuitable for farming. This could improve the economies of developing nations. Globally pests destroy 45 percent of the world's crops. Biotechnology can decrease this amount of waste by building in resistance to pests and weeds. Supporters claim that agricultural biotechnology will reduce the risk of crop failures. In addition, growing animals for food can be made more efficient and feasible for the world by producing animal feed that will help animals to better digest their food through improved protein quality of animal feed crops.
Proponents claim that advantages of food biotechnology that will be noticed in the marketplace are foods that have longer shelf life and better flavor, appearance, and texture. They use as examples peppers modified to be tastier and sweeter; smaller seedless melons for use as single servings; bananas and pineapples with delayed ripening properties; sweeter peas; bananas resistant to fungus; and strawberries with higher crop yields and improved freshness, flavor, and texture. Using biotechnology,familiar food products can be produced more cheaply. For example, before genetic engineering techniques became available, the enzyme used to make cheese, rennet, was obtained from the lining of calves' stomachs. Using biotechnology, researchers have identified and removed the specific gene responsible for rennet production and inserted it in bacteria, which then produce rennet.
Instead of spending between 10 and 12 years breeding plants in the traditional manner and mixing thousands of genes that could have unpredictable outcomes, with genetic engineering modern plant breeders can select a specific genetic trait fromany plant or animal and move it into any other plant or animal. This way genetic engineers can design plants with specific beneficial traits and without specific undesirable traits. They point out that this latest development in agricultural breeding is faster and more precise than previous methods of plant and animal breeding, and offers farmers a broader choice of how to improve their crops and manage their farms.
