What is plant biotechnology?
Ever since the dawn of agriculture, which began thousands of years ago with domestication of wild plants and animals from their natural habitats, humans have continuously transformed the crops and animals that we have come to depend upon for food and animal feed. Over many millennia, the crop varieties that were chosen for domestication have been gradually modified by selecting individual plants that grew the best and produced the best grains, vegetables, and fruits. Over time, this process of artificial selection resulted in profound changes in the stature, productivity, and taste of crop varieties. Modern corn is derived from a wild Central American grass plant called teosinte. Through successive generations of selection, breeders developed an entirely new species of plant – corn – that shares very few of its characteristics with the wild teosinte. Entirely new plant varieties were also developed by crossbreeding plants from different, but related species with one another. The progen
