World Future Society

Agricultural biotechnologies - agbiotech - will boost productivity increases to the point that food output will sate rapidly growing population needs worldwide. Agricultural potentials inherent in the biotech revolution are truly extraordinary. Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture John R. Block asserted in 1999 that agricultural output in developing nations could be boosted by 25% simply by resorting to agbiotech. Yet that may be an overly conservative estimate: technological optimists believe that productivity for some modified crops could be higher by orders of magnitude in the tens of thousands compared with the traditional crops they replace. Agribusiness generally includes food, fiber, fisheries, and forestry. The movement toward a bio tech-dominated agricultural sector will likely follow several stages.