Genetically Modified Crops and Their Impact on New Era of Agriculture

Abstract

Genetically engineered crops are different from genetically modified crops. Changes in genetic make-up of crops by any conventional or any means technology fall under genetically modified crops category. In general, among different traits, herbicide and pest tolerance were more exploited in which herbicide tolerant crops occupy more than 90% of the total cultivated area of genetically engineered crops as the mode of actions of herbicides are well known and tolerant gene sources are readily available in wild weedy forms and various microorganisms. By knowing the pathway of mode of action of herbicides and pest tolerance, herbicide and pest tolerant crops were transformed by altering the structure and functions of rate limiting enzymes without affecting the normal functionalities of plants. Other than these two economically important characters, several characters were engineered in different crop plants such as disease resistant, increased yield and biomass production, male sterility and quality characters like anti-allergy factors, modified composition of fatty acid, protein, increased micronutrients and enzyme contents, reduced contents of anti-nutritional factors and toxic substances. Through genetic engineering, transformed plants are used for establishing pharmaceutical products. In terms of area coverage, soya-bean followed maize, cotton, canola, alfalfa. Apart from genetically engineered crops, genome edited crops are developed for nullifying the negative effects and up-regulating the target traits having positive effects thus ultimately assisting in achieving food and nutritional security.