ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a class of techniques that can be distinguished from conventional methods of genetic manipulation such as selective breeding, crop rotation, introduction of exotic organisms, hybridization, and isolation of microbial pesticides. Biotechnology has a large potential to improve the human condition, and to engender important advances in pharmaceutical production, food processing, agricultural production, and environmental management. The larger the population of bacteria at a source site, the more likely it is that some organisms will disperse. In general, conventional plant and animal breeding have selected for features that have little effect on the ability of the species to proliferate in natural environments; indeed, they are usually at a disadvantage outside the target environment. Augmentative biological control of crop pests provides another model. Predators, parasitoids, pathogens, and competitors of crop pests are artificially increased and released back into the target environment.
