Lesson 7: BioBusiness Revolution: Agribiology, Environmental Life Sciences and Industrial Biotechnology (Past, Present and Future)

Quote of the week: “When we are able to grow the resources we need, we will finally be on the road to sustainability.”

This applies not only the food that we eat, but also the energy and materials that we use. So long as we can grow it, we are sustainable. However I think that one important factor that we have to take note of is that we must be able to grow it either at the same pace as we use the resources, or faster in order to be sustainable in our development.

Agribiology

Biotechnology can be incorporated into agricultural processes, this is called agribiotechnology. Reading 1 describes about how agribiotechnology helped to solve many problems such as not having enough food, or how locusts destroys so much crops and how people are lacking in Vitamin A by using GM crops.

One solution I felt was the most important was actually teaching the farmers how to perform such processes and make use of agribiotechnology. Even if it is widely available, but if farmers are ignorant, there wont be much use for such agribiotechnology. Also, it is important that the farmers learn how to observe the growing change of demand for certain crops so that they can move towards them.

However, there are still limitations of implementations of agribiotechnology. This is mentioned and expanded on in Reading 3. The point I felt was most striking from the article was about how there are no comprehensive domestic policy and federal systems when it comes to food safety through transgenic events.

As transgenic events are now playing such a huge role in agribiotechnology, it is appalling that there is no proper regulatory system. I feel that especially in such a major industry that could potentially affect the health and life of millions, it should have a proper regulatory body to set laws and rules in order to safeguard the population’s health and interests.

Environmental Life Sciences

Part 2 of reading 1 actually explains us in detail about how biotechnology will be able to help us with the sustainability of the environment with means such as using waste to produce new forms of energy, using bioplastics and biomaterials that are biodegradable.

Land pollution is a main concern for the developing world right now. With these forms of biodegradable materials, they can be easily recycled and hence solve the problem of land pollution. As discussed in the reading, there is tremendous potential for the development of biotechnology in industrial process that can help in the sustainability of the environment.

If biotechnology can assist in sustaining the environment, I don’t see why we should not do it. The probable main reason I reckon could be due to the high cost of biotechnology and the high cost in R&D to continue innovating. However, I feel that the benefits definitely do outweigh the cons as we only have one earth and most of the resources that we are using now to fulfill our energy needs are non-renewable. We can’t be selfish and let the future generations suffer for our sake.

Industrial Life Sciences

Industrial biotechnology interlinks with environmental biotechnology. Through industrialization, we have caused so much harm to the environment. Biotechnology is used to deal with the harm caused, and also to reduce the waste brought about from industrialization.

This can be done through biofuels, industrial enzymes and other mining purposes.

However, one point that reading 4 brought forth caught my attention. The author brought up an observation that biotechnology which would result in new products and new processes are very quickly implemented in all areas where biotechnology is able to play a role in. However, if it was going to replace an existing process or end product? The implementation process will be a long arduous one as somehow it is just in human nature to be resistant to change!

This brought me back to last lesson, where we discussed about how some doctors and hospitals are rejecting certain new modifications to certain procedures so they can continue to earn more revenue.

In order for any form of technology to develop, we must first overcome our resistance to change and keep up with the developments. This brings to mind a point from reading 4. Reading 4 talked about the different ways biotechnology can help end world hunger by increasing agricultural yield. However, many are still opposing the idea. The author based his argument on an objective basis and gave credit to environmental activist on their role to helping maintain acceptable air pollution standards and keeping the environmental standards now which could have easily been worse. However, to protest against biotechnology is based on the argument that we should not interfere with nature is ironic as without such developments, it will be impossible to keep up with the world’s growing populations and the world’s growing wants.

Overall

Biotechnology can help us in various ways and it is only whether we choose to adopt such technologies or not. We must not stick to our conventional ways and instead use science to help increase our efficiency to keep up our growth.

Many have misunderstood that only the developed countries mainly use biotechnology as they have the capital and facilities to integrate biotechnology into their processes. However, from reading 6, we see how the implementation of biotechnology is able to provide various opportunities for the developing countries. The 4 opportunities that were mentioned were:

1. Biotechnology may be able to reduce the cost of investment and production.
2. Biotechnology enables the developing countries to grow their bio products such as bio fertilizers locally so they wont need to spend on importing and instead export more to other countries requiring the fertilizers while using some to improve their crop yields too.
3. Biofuels could replace petroleum-based fuels in developing countries as prices of petroleum-based fuel are higher there due to the lack of refining knowledge in the country and they have to import. Hence, biofuels enable them to cut costs.
4. Biotechnology enables the countries to add value to their raw materials, enabling them to export them for higher prices. And also enable them to convert waste into useful materials.

That basically summed it all up for us! I had a great time learning about how biotechnology can be used to help solve so many of the world’s current problems. This lesson was very informative with the 5 student presentations and opened up a whole new dimension of technology to me.

See you guys next Monday!

-Thong Yong Sen (Matthew)-