Photo Courtesy of USDA NRCS.

Biotechnology-produced crops, pharmaceutical and other specialty protein production are a controversial area of value-added agricultural development. These crop production systems differ from the conventional artificial selection associated with plant breeding because modern biotechnological technology is utilized to transfer genes responsible for plant development and product production traits across natural biological or ecological barriers. Also, rather than a whole seed that is subdivided into many products, as is the case with traditional commodity agriculture, an individual chemical compound in the fruit of the plant may be the target of the harvest and subsequent specialized processing. For this reason, these production systems usually incorporate "identity preservation" strategies. These are handing and management techniques that ensure product purity and quality integrity.  July 2009 . . . Pharmaceutical Market Trends


Consumption Trends

• AgMRC-Developed Materials
  • Fields of Dilemma: Recent Events in Biotechnology and Crop Production, Ag Marketing Resource Center, 2003 - Recent discoveries in the biological sciences are providing new ways to beneficially manipulate biological systems ranging from individual cells to entire ecosystems. In many Midwestern states, this has been translated into what has been described as the new biotechnological vision of agriculture.
• Links to Other Sites
  • Agricultural Biotechnology Reports, Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology.
  • The Economics of Pharmaceutical Crops: Potential Benefits and Risks for Farmers and Rural Communities finds that while some drug and biotechnology companies may profit from pharma crops, growers and rural communities are likely to see, at best, only modest benefits. 2005.
  • Experimental Pharmaceutical and Industrial Substances, Union of Concerned Scientists.
  • International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications
  • National Agricultural Biotechnology Council - A nonprofit consortium of leading ag research and teaching governmental agencies/institutions/universities in the United States and Canada that addresses issues surrounding agricultural biotechnology.
  • Pharmaceutical and Industrial Traits for Genetically Modified Crops: Co-existence with Conventional Agriculture, Iowa State University.
  • Pharmalicensing

Links checked July 2009.