DOCSLIB.ORG

Emerging Edens : the Biotechnology Transformation of American Agriculture

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Emerging Edens : the Biotechnology Transformation of American Agriculture EMERGING EDENS: THE BIOTECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE -By MARK STEVEN LESNEY A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 1997 This dissertation is dedicated to the memory of my father, Jerome, who died before he could see it, but not before he could encourage me in its birth and its completion. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to express his appreciation to his committee of advisors: Dr. Frederick Gregory, Dr. Robert Hatch, Dr. Betram Wyatt-Brown and Dr. Chuang Liu, but most especially to his major advisor. Dr. V. Betty Smocovitis for her support and friendship. Special thanks also goes to Dr. Loukas Arvanitis for his encouragement. The author would like to thank Christopher Koehler, Gary Weisel and Michael Futch for acting as a valuable cohort and friends during this second run at graduate school. A special thanks goes to Richard Pizzi for his support, encouragement and friendship through some hard times The author is most grateful to his family, especially to his father, Jerome, now deceased, and his mother, Stephanie, who provided without condition or fail the love and encouragement needed to make it through this time of career readjustment. Words cannot express the author's indebtedness, love and gratitude to these two splendid people. The author would also like to thank his brother, Michael, and his sister-in-law, Maryalice, for their love and support. m TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii ABSTRACT v CHAPTERS 1. INTRODUCTION 1 Biotechnology, Agriculture and Revolutions 1 2. THE "SCI ENT I F I CAT I ON " OF AGRICULTURE AND THE BIRTH OF INSTITUTIONAL IDEOLOGY 36 The Land Grant Mission - The Land Grant Memory ... 54 Agricultural Science and Disciplinary "Unity" ... 65 3. SILENT SPRING, VOCAL CRITICS 83 4. THE NEW BIOLOGY: A DNA WORLD 110 The "Revolution" in Molecular Biology 110 The Science Behind Agricultural Biotechnology . 124 Plant and Animal Physiology 127 Biological Nitrogen Fixation 129 Hormone Research 140 Tissue Culture 145 Plant and Animal Pathology 161 Plant and Animal Genetics/Breeding 175 5. INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE/INSTITUTIONAL WARFARE 181 6. "UNHOLY" ALLIANCES 233 7. NATURALIZING THE UNNATURAL 267 8. BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE TRIUMPH OF BIOTECHNOLOGY, "PROGRESS," AND THE LAND GRANT SYSTEM 287 REFERENCES 301 GENERAL 301 ARCHIVAL MATERIAL FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA . 316 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 321 IV Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy EMERGING EDENS: THE BIOTECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE By Mark Steven Lesney May, 1997 Chairperson: Vassiliki B. Smocovitis Major Department: History Biotechnology in American agriculture developed in a context of institutional, state and national politics, as well as of scientific change. It "emerged" in a framework of private and public ideological crises that lent meaning to biotechnology as a unique solution to a catastrophic loss of faith in the inherited mythos of American agriculture, and a dissillusionment with the idea of scientific progress itself. The rhetoric of "science in farming" was coupled to the belief that agricultural research (basic and applied) was a national priority, an idea that had been honed from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. Agricultural chemistry came under attack after World War II, in part from the development of the modern environmental movement and the ecological mentality, both scientific and popular. At the same time overproduction in v the U.S. led many to question the role of productivity research. From one perspective this can be seen as a crisis in which failure of old science and technologies led to demands for a new paradigm. By the early 1970s, the solution to these problems "emerged" in what many saw as a growing biotechnology revolution and was pursued vigorously at many universities. By the early 1980s, it became a key issue in the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. Having embraced the promises of tissue culture, scientists and administrators found it easy to recognize the promise of molecular genetics. They charted a new course for land grant research. Plant genetic engineering was, in fact, ancillary to the shift in technological direction. Prior technologies and a firm belief in the new agricultural chemistry--that of DNA and the unity of life under the macromolecular rubric and the evolutionary synthesis--had already transformed the rhetoric and reality of research. The old paradigm was re- invigorated. The threatening new paradigm ("holistic" farming and an abandonment of USDA's production mentality) was defeated or absorbed. vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Biotechnology, Agriculture and Revolutions The Emergence of Emerging Historians have recognized the mythic power of America as the New Eden. From the beginning of colonization, America has been the fabled land of plenty — food and fiber in abundance, the lure to a Europe on the continual edge of want. 1 Politically, from Washington and Jefferson to the Populists, from the Homestead Act to modern calls for the preservation of the family farm, the agrarian component of this idyllic mythos has been a key facet in the ideology of American republicanism. The United States envisions itself as a nation of yeoman farmers, feeding their families and feeding the world. 2 1 R. D. Hurt in his American Agriculture: A Brief History (Ames: Iowa University Press, 1994) states: "In the colonies . relatively cheap and easy access to land gave American farmers freedom to produce for themselves and the marketplace and leave subsistence farming behind within a relatively short time after settlement." (p. 69). This freedom and cheap land was such that "Many colonial farmers agreed that America was the "best poor man's country in the world."" (p. 37). 2 Leo Marx in The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964) comments on an aspect of this, what he calls. 1 2 America has also been the quintessential home of the Enlightenment ideal of progress. From the first, that progress has been enshrined in rational, scientific thought and the technology it created. The necessity of that progress has been a cultural given since America was born of a Europe that had embraced progress nearly unequivocally. 3 Wedded to the American mythos of renewal, abundance and rebirth in the land and frontier, it has provided a vision of the primary methodology by which to achieve the promised agricultural Eden. 4 "sentimentality" towards the rural life in America: "We see it in our politics... in the power of the farm bloc in Congress, in the special economic favor shown to "farming" through government subsidies, and in state electoral systems that allow the rural population to retain a share of political power grossly out of proportion to its size." (p.5). Although Marx was writing in 1964, I would argue that little has changed, consider the issue of tobacco subsidies in today's politics. 3 Clive Ponting on p.150 of A Green History of the World (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992) states that: "The eighteenth century was marked by a wave of optimism about the future and the inevitability of progress in every field." He quotes the English writer William Godwin who stated in 1793 that: "Three fourths of the habitable globe are now uncultivated. The improvements to be made in cultivation, and the augmentations the earth is capable of receiving in the article of productiveness cannot, as yet, be reduced to any limits of calculation." America was a significant portion of that three fourths and represented much of that potential. 4 It is telling that in 1863, in his first report, Isaac Newton, Commissioner of Agriculture of the newly established United States Department of Agriculture, not only extols agriculture as the source of civilized morals and society but blames the fall of Rome on her repudiation of agrarian values. Newton then delineates the line of 3 Progress gained an inevitability of direction, a Lamarckian "power of life" striving toward an ultimate perfection that could be aided (by the wise) or resisted (by the foolish). 5 New possibilities "emerged" from this forward modern agricultural progress, pointing out Great Britain’s debt "in a large measure to Lord Bacon for her early attention to progressive agriculture. That great thinker gave to the world inductive philosophy, which teaches man to experiment, to question and test nature by her great alphabet of soils, gases, elements and phenomena - a philosophy which is at once positive, progressive and eternal, making man the "minister and interpreter of nature."" Newton points out that in the United States "great and manifold progress has been made in agriculture." (p. 9). "It is common to see the best plough, rollers, cultivators, reapers, threshers, fanners, hay and cotton presses, sugar mills, horse and steam powers, and a thousand other labor- saving machines, the results of skill and science. This imperfect sketch of agricultural improvement in England and the United States is given in order to show that progress [italicized in the original] has not been the result of mere routine farming, but of practical applied science [italicized in the original] - of classified knowledge." (p. 10 ) . 5 Richard Burkhardt in The Spirit of the System: Lamarck and Evolutionary Biology , (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), points out that not only was Lamarck's idea of evolution a theory very much belonging to the eighteenth century, but that his "model of organic change took into account both the "natural" progress of organic development and the modification of this progress by constraining circumstances (p.145)." It involved a natural form of progress. "Lamarck identified the primary factor of organic change to be a natural tendency toward increased complexity, which he attributed to "the power of life" (p.151)." Such a belief appears to underlie the belief in the evolution of technological progress and the concept of emergence.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Historiographies of Plant Breeding and Agriculture LSE Research Online URL for This Paper: Version: Accepted Version
    Historiographies of Plant Breeding and Agriculture LSE Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/101334/ Version: Accepted Version Book Section: Berry, Dominic J. (2019) Historiographies of Plant Breeding and Agriculture. In: Dietrich, Michael, Borrello, Mark and Harman, Oren, (eds.) Handbook of the Historiography of Biology. Springer. ISBN 9783319901183 (In Press) Reuse Items deposited in LSE Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the LSE Research Online record for the item. [email protected] https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/ Historiographies of Plant Breeding and Agriculture Dominic J. Berry London School of Economics There are unique opportunities that plant breeding and agriculture offer the historian of biology, and unique ways in which the historian of biology can inform the history of plant breeding and agriculture (Harwood, 2006. Phillips and Kingsland, 2015). There are also of course questions and challenges that the study of agricultural sites share with the study of other biological sites, such as those in medicine (Wilmot 2007. Woods et al. 2018), the environment (Agar and Ward 2018), and non-agricultural industries (Bud 1993). Indeed, in some instances the agricultural, medical, environmental, and biologically industrial will be one and the same. This is to say nothing of what agricultural sites share in common with histories of science beyond biology, but that is a broader discussion I can only mention in passing (Parolini 2015).
    [Show full text]
  • History of Biotechnology Stages of Biotech
    History of Biotechnology Stages of Biotech Ancient Classical Modern Ancient Biotech Begins with early civilization Developments in ag and food production Few records exist Ancient Biotech Archeologists research Ancient carvings and sketches sources of information Classical Biotech Follows ancient Makes wide spread use of methods from ancient, especially fermentation Methods adapted to industrial production Classical Biotech Produce large quantities of food products and other materials in short amount of time Meet demands of increasing population Classical Biotech Many methods developed through classical biotech are widely used today. Modern Biotech Manipulation of genetic material within organisms Based on genetics and the use of microscopy, biochemical methods, related sciences and technologies Modern Biotech Often known as genetic engineering Roots involved the investigation of genes Ancient Biotech Not known when biotech began exactly Focused on having food and other human needs Ancient Biotech Useful plants brought from the wild, planted near caves where people lived As food was available, ability to store and preserve emerged Ancient Food preservation most likely came from unplanned events such as a fire or freeze Domestication 15,000 years ago, large animals were hard to capture People only had meat when they found a dead animal Came up with ways of capturing fish and small animals Domestication Food supplies often seasonal Winter food supplies may get quite low Domestication is seen by scientists as the beginning of biotech Domestication
    [Show full text]
  • Bibliographies Biotechnology, the Life Science Industry, and the Environment
    berkeley workshop on environmental pol i tics bibliographies b 04-9 biotechnology, the life science industry, and the environment an annotated bibliography Dustin R. Mulvaney and Jennifer L. Wells institute of international studies, university of california, berkeley table of contents Introduction.....................................................................................................................................1 General Overview ............................................................................................................................1 Biological Frameworks: Genetic Reductionism and Epigenetics .......................................................7 The Ethics of Biotechnologies ........................................................................................................12 The Ecological Hazards of Transgenic Crops ..................................................................................16 Politics, Science and the Social Context of Regulation....................................................................20 The Life Science Industries and Agro-Industrial Dynamics ............................................................25 The University-Industrial Complex................................................................................................31 Germplasm, Genetic Resources, and Global Governance ...............................................................35 Annotated Bibliography .................................................................................................................39
    [Show full text]
  • Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering
    GLOBAL ISSUES BIOTECHNOLOGY AND GENETIC ENGINEERING GLOBAL ISSUES BIOTECHNOLOGY AND GENETIC ENGINEERING Kathy Wilson Peacock Foreword by Charles Hagedorn, Ph.D. Professor, Environmental Microbiology, Virginia Tech GLOBAL ISSUES: BioTECHNologY AND GENETIC ENgiNeeRING Copyright © 2010 by Infobase Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Facts On File, Inc. An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Peacock, Kathy Wilson. Biotechnology and genetic engineering / Kathy Wilson Peacock; foreword by Charles Hagedorn. p.; cm. — (Global issues) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8160-7784-7 (alk. paper) 1. Biotechnology—Popular works. 2. Genetic engineering—Popular works. I. Title. II. Series: Global issues (Facts on File, Inc.) [DNLM: 1. Biotechnology. 2. Genetic Engineering. 3. Organisms, Genetically Modified—genetics. QU 450 P352b 2010] TP248.215.P43 2010 660.6—dc22 2009025794 Facts On File books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Facts On File on the World Wide Web at http://www.factsonfile.com Text design by Erika K. Arroyo Illustrations by Dale Williams Composition by Mary Susan Ryan-Flynn Cover printed by Art Print, Taylor, Pa. Book printed and bound by Maple Press, York, Pa.
    [Show full text]
  • A Short History of Biotechnology
    Biotecnología, una historia… Cuando se habla de biotecnología en la actualidad, frecuentemente se hace referencia a procesos que involucran técnicas de ingeniería genética, como la transgénesis, por ejemplo. Sin embargo, la biotecnología incluye a un conjunto de actividades que acompañan al hombre desde tiempos remotos en gran parte de su vida cotidiana. ¿Cuáles fueron los hechos históricos considerados hitos en el desarrollo de la biotecnología, desde la fabricación de cerveza en el reinado de Nabucodonosor, hasta los desarrollos modernos? El contexto en que surge la Biotecnología La biotecnología, entendida en su sentido más amplio como “el empleo de organismos vivos y sus productos para obtener un bien o servicio”, ha formado parte de la vida cotidiana del hombre desde mucho antes que recibiera el nombre con el que se la conoce actualmente. En la transición del hábito nómada cazador-recolector a la vida en comunidad, aparecen ya indicios de actividades biotecnológicas. El comienzo de las actividades agrícolas junto con la cría de animales, el procesamiento de hierbas para uso medicinal, la preparación de pan y cerveza junto con muchos otros alimentos fermentados como el yogurt, el queso y numerosos derivados de la soja (tofu, salsa de soja, etc.), son algunos ejemplos. También lo son el uso de bálsamos derivados de plantas, y remedios de origen vegetal para tratar las heridas. Los arqueólogos han descubierto indicios de estas actividades en culturas ancestrales incluyendo a los chinos, los egipcios, los griegos y romanos, los sumerios y a otras civilizaciones que habitaron el planeta hace más de 7000 años. Estas comunidades necesitaron desarrollar esas habilidades para subsistir.
    [Show full text]
  • Biotechnology" Was First Coined in 1919 by Karl Ereky Which Means Products Are Produced from Raw Materials with the Aid of Living Organisms
    Concepts of Biotechnology The term “Biotechnology" was first coined in 1919 by Karl Ereky which means products are produced from raw materials with the aid of living organisms. Biotechnology is NOT new. Man has been manipulating living things to solve problems and improve his way of life for millennia. Early agriculture concentrated on producing food. Plants and animals were selectively bred and microorganisms were used to make food items such as beverages, cheese and bread. The late eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century saw the advent of vaccinations, crop rotation involving leguminous crops and animal drawn machinery. The end of the nineteenth century was a milestone of biology. Microorganisms were discovered, Mendel's work on genetics was accomplished and institutes for investigating fermentation and other microbial processes were established by Koch, Pasteur and Lister. Biotechnology at the beginning of the twentieth century began to bring industry and agriculture together. During World War I, fermentation processes were developed that produced acetone from starch and paint solvents for the rapidly growing automobile industry. Work in the 1930s was geared towards using surplus agricultural products to supply industry instead of imports or petrochemicals. The advent of World War II brought the manufacture of penicillin. The biotechnical focus moved to pharmaceuticals. The "cold war" years were dominated by work with microorganisms in preparation for biological warfare as well as antibiotics and fermentation processes (Goodman, 1987). Biotechnology is currently being used in many areas including agriculture, bioremediation, food processing and energy production. DNA fingerprinting is becoming a common practice in forensics. Production of insulin and other medicines is accomplished through cloning of vectors that now carry the chosen gene.
    [Show full text]
  • Biotechnology What Is Biotech?
    First Edition, 2007 ISBN 978 81 89940 34 8 © All rights reserved. Published by: Global Media 1819, Bhagirath Palace, Chandni Chowk, Delhi-110 006 Email: [email protected] Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Technician - Skills Needed for Biotech 3. Basic Microbiology 4. Basic Details About Biotechnology 5. Agriculture 6. Medicine 7. Recombinant DNA 8. Fermentation and Tissue Culture 9. Biological Warfare 10. Allele 11. Artificial Selection 12. Biochemical Engineering 13. Gene 14. Plasmid 15. Protein 16. RNA 17. Glossary of Terms Introduction Where would we have been had it not been for the discovery of the art of collecting seeds and cultivating them for food? Life would surely have been very different! Early man was a food gatherer, depending on nature for all his needs. He gradually moved on to being a food grower with the discovery of agriculture, and settled down in one place, learning to live in a group. This was the beginning of civilization as we know it today. Early knowledge of agriculture was an accumulation of experiences that were passed on from father to son. Some of these have been preserved as religious commandments and some in the ancient inscriptions. There is evidence to show that as early as 2000 BC the Egyptian civilization followed particular dates for sowing and reaping. Some Greek and Roman classics give instructions on how to get a higher yield. The development of agriculture made it apparent that more food could be extracted from a given area of land by encouraging useful and hardy plant and animal species, and discouraging others.
    [Show full text]
  • Module 2 Biotechnology: History, State of the Art, Future. Lecture Notes
    MODULE 2 BIOTECHNOLOGY: HISTORY, STATE OF THE ART, FUTURE. LECTURE NOTES: UNIT 1 INTRODUCTION TO BIOTECHNOLOGY, HISTORY AND CONCEPTS DEFINITION Dr Marcel Daba BENGALY Université Ouaga I Pr Joseph KI ZERBO Final version, February 2017 Disclaimer This publication has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the authors and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union. 1 This Unit 1 of Module 2 is an integral part of the six Master's level course modules (each of 20 hrs) in the field of agricultural biotechnology as elaborated by the EDULINK-FSBA project (2013-2017) which are: Module 1: Food security, agricultural systems and biotechnology Module 2: Biotechnology: history, state of the art, future Module 3: Public response to the rise of biotechnology Module 4: Regulation on and policy approaches to biotechnology Module 5: Ethics and world views in relation to biotechnology Module 6: Tailoring biotechnology: towards societal responsibility and country specific approaches PRESENTATION OF MODULE 2 INTRODUCTION Achieving food security in its totality (food availability, economic and physical access to food, food utilization and stability over time) continues to be a challenge not only for the developing nations, but also for the developed world. The difference lies in the magnitude of the problem in terms of its severity and proportion of the population affected. According to FAO statistics, a total of 842 million people in 2011–13, or around one in eight people in the world, were estimated to be suffering from chronic hunger.
    [Show full text]
  • Biotechnology 101 P1: FBQ/JZK P2: FBQ Ggbd030-Fm.Tex Ggbd030 GR3542/Shmaefsky September 7, 2006 11:28
    P1: FBQ/JZK P2: FBQ ggbd030-fm.tex ggbd030 GR3542/Shmaefsky September 7, 2006 11:28 Biotechnology 101 P1: FBQ/JZK P2: FBQ ggbd030-fm.tex ggbd030 GR3542/Shmaefsky September 7, 2006 11:28 Recent Titles in the Science 101 Series Evolution 101 Randy Moore and Janice Moore P1: FBQ/JZK P2: FBQ ggbd030-fm.tex ggbd030 GR3542/Shmaefsky September 7, 2006 11:28 Biotechnology 101 Brian Robert Shmaefsky Science 101 GREENWOOD PRESS r Westport, Connecticut London P1: FBQ/JZK P2: FBQ ggbd030-fm.tex ggbd030 GR3542/Shmaefsky September 7, 2006 11:28 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shmaefsky, Brian. Biotechnology 101 / Brian Robert Shmaefsky. p. cm.—(Science 101, ISSN 1931–3950) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0–313–33528–1 (alk. paper) 1. Biotechnology. I. Title. TP248.215.S56 2006 660.6–dc22 2006024555 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2006 by Brian Robert Shmaefsky All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2006024555 ISBN: 0–313–33528–1 ISSN: 1931–3950 First published in 2006 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10987654321 P1: FBQ/JZK P2: FBQ ggbd030-fm.tex ggbd030 GR3542/Shmaefsky September 7, 2006 11:28 Contents Series Foreword xi Preface xiii 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Culture, Risk, and the Prospect of Genetically Modified Organisms As Viewed by Tāngata Whenua
    Culture, Risk, and the Prospect of Genetically Modified Organisms as Viewed by Tāngata Whenua Terre Satterfield, Mere Roberts, Mark Henare, Melissa Finucane, Richard Benton, and Manuka Henare Culture, Risk and the Prospect of Genetically Modified Organisms as Viewed by Tāngata Whenua By Terre Satterfield, Mere Roberts, Mark Henare, Melissa Finucane, Richard Benton, and Manuka Henare Whakatane: Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi May 2005 The research reported in this report has been supported under Contract UOA X0234 from the Foundation for Research Science and Technology, Wellington, New Zealand through the University of Auckland and Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi. The authors would like to thank all those who made this project possible. Their willingness to embark upon this journey with us into the largely unknown was greatly appreciated. Nō reira, mā te Atua koutou e manaaki, e tiaki i ngā wā katoa. Their views presented here provide an in-depth insight into the values and beliefs of a wide range of tangata whenua concerning genetically modified organisms. We hope their gift will make a valuable contribution to this subject area, and provide sustenance for those who seek to travel further on this journey. We wish to thank the James Henare Research Centre at the University of Auckland who provided a home for the first stages of this project and, along with our Māori Advisory Committee members (Dr. Merimeri Penfold, Father Henare Tait, Pereme Porter and Rua Rakena), provided much appreciated manaakitanga for this project. Project Director: Dr Mere Roberts, Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi Associate Researchers: Dr Terre Satterfield, The University of British Columbia Dr Melissa Finucane, Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, Honolulu, Hawai’i Dr Manuka Henare, The University of Auckland Advisor: Professor Richard Benton, The University of Waikato Graduate Assistant: Mark Henare, Cambridge University CONTENTS 1.
    [Show full text]
  • The Biotechnology's Importance for Society. Consumer's Acceptance Of
    Romanian Journal of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Hypnosis Volume 4, Issue 1-2, January –June 2017 Editorial The Biotechnology’s importance for society. Consumer’s acceptance of biotechnological products. Nastasia Belc National Research & Development Institute for Food Bioresources, IBA Bucharest, Romania Claudia Elena Moșoiu, Sorin Corneliu Iorga National Research & Development Institute for Food Bioresources, IBA Bucharest, Romania Abstract Biotechnology is a very complex field which requires a wide multisciplinarity and that can be the one of the reliable ways to be used for developing several sectors such as: aqua- and agriculture, food industry, pharma industry, medical sector, veterinary medicine field or environment protection sector (forestry, soils, waters). Biotechnology has been used since ancient times for food production and preservation, but only in the last 2 centuries sufficient new knowledge has been accumulated in order to establish biotechnology as a specific field of expertise and competence. Green (agriculture), red (medical), white (industrial) and blue (water) biotechnologies are used for obtaining energetic, agricole, pharmaceutic, food and environmental protection products based on the microorganisms potential through genetic engineering techniques and their derivates such as microbian enzymes, by specialists having knowledge in chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, microbiology, informatics technology and nanotechnologies. The biotechnological products should be accepted by consumers (industrial, from
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Biotechnology
    Introduction to Biotechnology The root words of biotechnology are ancient Greek: • Bios: "life" • Technikos: “Skillfully made "tool" • Logos: "Study of," "word," "essence" Biotechnology- “The study of living tools"- is used in agriculture, food processing, industrial production, environmental cleanup and medicine. A set of modern tools that utilize living organisms or parts of it cell or tissue or genes/DNA to make or modify or improve plants or animals or develop microorganisms for specific use or their large scale production. "Utilization of organisms or its organells or biological process to make product or to solve problems for the welfare of mankind." The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 2000) biotechnology means "any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use". Biotechnology - production of goods and services using biological organisms, systems and process. History of Biotechnology: Biotechnology seems to be leading a sudden new biological revolution. Biotechnology is NOT new. Man has been manipulating living things to solve problems and improve his way of life for millennia. The term biotechnology was coined in 1919 by Karl Ereky, an Hungarian engineer. At that time, the term meant all the lines of work by which products are produced from raw materials with the aid of living organisms. Although now most often associated with the development of drugs, historically biotechnology has been principally associated with food such as malnutrition and famine. The history of biotechnology begins on brewing techniques for beer. Early agriculture concentrated on producing food. Plants and animals were selectively bred and microorganisms were used to make food items such as beverages, cheese and bread.
    [Show full text]