ABSTRACT
In this century, most agriculture products are grown by using various pesticides and fertilizers but only a small portion of pesticides applied to crops reach the target pest and most of these chemicals enter the environment and kill non-target living things more than pests. Sustainable agriculture is an ecofriendly option and reduces the negative effects of conventional agriculture,
as it protects both human and the environment from these unknown risks by using sustainable methods, such as crop protection, integrated pest management (IPM), and biotechnological methods. In cases where the production of organic crops is impossible, biotechnological programs would be appropriate strategies for food safety in integrated crop management (ICM) programs. However, integrated pest management methods have been developed worldwide, recently improvement of IPM is more than before required. The use of biotechnological methods to create resistant plants can enhance integrated pest management efficiency. A major improvement will come from a new cultivar with different levels of resistance to pests. Classical breeding for increased host plant resistance needs more time and special labor-intensive technique. Recent molecular methods have opened up new opportunities for pest control by providing access to novel pathways, the accessibility for changing the quality and quantity of expression of genes, and the development of transgenic crops with pesticide genes. Then, there are several biotechnological strategies for increasing plant resistance such as enhanced direct resistance against pests, a transgenic plant that promotes natural enemies’ demography parameters, incorporating transgenic plants in IPM, effects of transgenic varieties on beneficial organisms, side effects of genes expression in plant resistance, and the others. In this chapter, we will discuss about the use of biotechnological methods to develop insect-resistant transgenic plants as a novel method to integrating pest management.
