Food and sustainability: the regulation of biotechnology

Numerous challenges face the global food supply in the 21st century: some are novel, such as increases in extreme climatic variation; others are exacerbations of problems from the last century, such as increasing population pressure. The benefits of the green revolution from the 1960s are reaching maximum potential, but they also make demands for greater supply of fertilisers that may not be sustainable. Some solutions lie in the use of biotechnology to develop food crops that require fewer inputs on cultivation for the same or better outputs. There have been diverse approaches taken around the world to the regulation of biotechnology's application to crop development. This article illustrates current global trends.