Green biotechnology
Teknik Naturvetenskap
Åsa Grimberg
2011-08-30 10:59, reviderat 2011-08-30 11:07
**Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Plant Breeding and Biotechnology, Unit of Biotechnology.**
Climate, geopolitical and economic factors necessitate a rapid replacement of the fossil oil with environmentally neutral and sustainable alternatives. Green Biotechnology can deliver many of the tools necessary for transforming our society from depending on a fossil-based to utilization of a bio-based raw material supply. This transformation has to be realized without endangering the availability of agricultural produce for food production to the growing world population.
In the last years, agricultural products have been in focus as an alternative to fossil oil, in particular for the production of fuels as ethanol and biodiesel. Despite that there is a consensus that agriculture can only replace a minor part of the total amount of fossil oil used today, agriculture can have an important role to deliver raw materials in the form of reduced hydrocarbons (starch and oil) to replace the fossil oil used in the chemical industry. However, with a growing world population requiring more food, in parallel with an increased use of agricultural raw material for the chemical industry, there will be a much higher demand for agricultural produce in the future.
This challenge must be met in a sustainable way, and biotechnology promise ways to increase the dynamics and diversity in the used genetic material to meet ever changing biotic and abiotic stress factors. Criteria of the raw material that needs to be fulfilled in the future are: i) The qualities of the raw material need to be optimised for the specific industrial or food application in question ii) The total production of the desired products has to be substantially increased iii) The tolerance to diseases and non-biotic stress has to be improved to ensure a predictable supply.
Sub areas: Green Biotechnology
A.Industrial feedstock product qualities
B.Food product qualities
C.Disease resistance
D.Non-biotic stress tolerance
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