Abstract
Biotechnology as applied to agriculture is both a strategic opportunity and an economic threat. Its first products are beginning to appear, and those agricultural communities who embrace this new technology will derive the immediate economic benefits of new jobs and structural renewal. Questions of ethics and of fears of the social impact of new technologies are rampant in the same agricultural community. A better understanding of the benefits agriculture has historically derived from technology, as well as the operation of regulatory structures to control and ensure human safety and environmental acceptability, will ensure agriculture reaps its just benefits. Keys to ensuring this are better policy-making and greater political understanding of the benefits. Agriculture must urgently embrace the technology and its strategic opportunities — not to do so means putting jobs and provision for change at risk.
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