ABSTRACT
Although the term “genetic modication” (GM) is widely used today to denote modern biotechnology, or more specically “genetic engineering” (GE), it can be argued that any human intervention to change the natural genetic make-up of a living organism is regarded as GM. As the records show, thousands of years back (as reected in Section 2.2.1), farmers and scientists have been actively engaged in continuous efforts to improve farm plants and yard animals both quantitatively and qualitatively. Before the advent of new biotechnologies during the 1970s, a number of techniques have been discovered and used for GM. The following sections highlight and discuss some of these techniques, conveniently referred to by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council of the National Academies (2004) as “techniques other than GE” or “techniques not involving GE.”
