Introduction

BREEDING AND BIOTECHNOLOGY

Introduction

India’s population is likely to reach 1.7 billion by 2050. Current rate of India’s food production will be able to meet only 59% of the country’s food demand at that time. How can India feed 1.7 billion people by 2050? This can be made possible by ‘Plant breeding’ and ‘Animal husbandry’.

Plant breeding is the art of developing economically important plants with superior quality.

Animal husbandry involves the breeding of animals. It aims at improving the genotypes of animals to make them more useful to the welfare of mankind.This emphasizes domestication and propagation of animals,under controlled conditions to enhance food production and food quality.

Another breakthrough was the emergence of biotechnology as an entity of modern biology, which paved way to develop advanced healthcare products, diagnostic kits and food production to improve the quality of human life.