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Probably the single greatest management challenge to the farmers’ world over is that of pests, diseases and weeds. About one third of the crop productivity is reduced due to biotic stress factors. Synthetic pesticides are valued for their effectiveness, long shelf life and ease for their transportation, storage and application. But, they caused serious problems like fatal toxicity; soil, water and air pollution with known consequences on humans, wildlife and environment; development of pesticide resistance, necessitating the use of higher doses of at increasing cost to the farmer and to society as a whole. A farmer who protected his cotton crop with six sprays about 20 years ago, now spraying 15-20 times yet with without satisfactory control. Therefore, alternate pest and disease control strategies, both effective and low cost are urgently needed.
Agriculture biotechnology, in the form recombinant DNA technology can develop newer biological insecticides that can retain the advantages of classical biological control agents but have fewer or none of their drawbacks. Apart from widening the pool of useful genes, biotechnology allows the use of several desirable genes in a single event and reduces the time to introgress novel genes into elite background. Addition of one or a few genes to a plant may make it more productive to feed growing global population; more nutritious there by helping to eradicate malnutrition; impart resistance to insect pests, diseases, abiotic stress factors and enhance the durability of products during harvesting and shipping. It has the potential of completely eradicating the detrimental toxic chemicals from agriculture without affecting food security. Scientists and farmers are optimistic and enthusiastic about the prospects of using biotechnology to improve yields and nutritional value of crop plants.
We, at High Tech Agri Services, intend to target the area of bio-pesticides and plant transformation (Transgenic crops for insect and disease resistance, tolerance against abiotic stresses and for better nutritional characters). Some of the limitations of bio-pesticides, such as slow action/penetration, restricted host range and adaptability and limited field persistence/stability need to be systematically addressed by various strategies involving genetic manipulation/engineering.
