A Competence Bloc Analysis of the Economic Potential of Biotechnology in Agriculture and Food Production

Biotechnology is becoming an increasingly important industrial technology, notably in the health care, pharmaceutical, agricultural, and food production fields. While it was once heralded as a radical technological revolution in pharmaceutical industry, its largest and fastest attainable potential may be in agriculture and food industry. The agricultural market is larger, but the profit margins on R&D are low, since a large part of the consumers who will benefit live in poor countries. However, functional foods, genetically modified food (GMF), and other forms of plant biotechnology are up and coming and may open up new and more prosperous markets — provided they are not rejected by the market or blocked by political regulation.