Narrator: This is Science Today. Is biotechnology - or genetically engineered crops - the key to the future of agriculture? Plant pathologist Pamela Ronald of the University of California , Davis thinks so. Ronald, who leads the Plant Genome Project, explains that genetic engineering is a form of crop modification.

Ronald: But it differs from standard breeding techniques that we've been using for many years. Genetic engineering has been around for about thirty years and the major difference is that with genetic engineering, you can introduce the gene from any species so it introduces this idea that you have this vast potential for genetic alteration of a plant.

Narrator: And what are some of the potential uses?

Ronald: There's a couple traits out there and one of the most important I think is for reducing the use of pesticides, so there's a pest-resistant crop that's available and in the future, there's hope that we'll be able to engineer plants to withstand diverse environmental stresses.

Narrator: Such as flood or salt-tolerant rice. For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.