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Agricultural biotechnology is the area of research, which aims at biotechnological intervention in agricultural development. The development means increasing crop yield, disease protection, improved quality of crop and food value etc. The need for more food to cater the 1 billion plus population has to be met through higher yields per units of land, which seems possible only with the help of biotechnology. The foundation stone of agricultural biotechnology application in India was laid by the mentor of green revolution – Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, who realized that, we need to examine how science can be mobilized to raise further the biological productivity ceiling without associated ecological harm. Scientific progress on the farms, as an ever-green revolution, must emphasize that the productivity advance is sustainable over time since it is rooted in the principles of ecology, economics, social and gender equity, and employment generation. However, there are severe debates on the issue about the way of using biotechnology in agriculture, although its applicability is well appreciated. It is, in fact, one of the primary ingredients in the world's effort to combat food insecurity and malnutrition.

The agricultural biotechnology has a wide spectrum of utilities, which in addition to the productivity enhancement, includes offshoots from biofertilizers and biopesticides as well. However, through application of modern techniques of biotechnology to agriculture, breeders can make precise genetic changes that impart beneficial properties to the crop plants, trees, fish, and animals which provide us with food and fiber. Agricultural biotechnology helps farmers to increase yields, enabling them to produce more food per acre and reduces the need for chemical fertilizers, pesticides, water, and tilling. Thereby, it reduces the chemical loads of the environment subsequently decreases the hazards to the health and livelihood of farmers.

Genetic engineering of crops may also promote the stress protection capacity against environmental stresses like water stress, heat stress, salt stress and also stress from disease prevalence for improving the agricultural productivity. Through specific design, biotechnology also can be used to enhance the nutritive value of staple foods for improving overall nutrition and health.

One is improved yield from crops. Using the techniques of modern biotechnology, one or two genes may be transferred to a highly developed crop variety to impart a new character that would increase its yield. Current genetic engineering techniques work best for effects that are controlled by a single gene. Many of the genetic characteristics associated with yield (e.g., enhanced growth) are controlled by a large number of genes, each of which has a minimal effect on the overall yield. Thus the genetic engineering is the most difficult challenge of this application.

The biotechnological interventions in agriculture also reduce vulnerability of crops to environmental stresses. Crops containing genes that will enable them to withstand biotic and abiotic stresses may be developed. Researchers have also created transgenic rice plants that are resistant to rice yellow mottle virus (RYMV). In Africa, this virus destroys majority of the rice crops and makes the surviving plants more susceptible to fungal infections.

The first genetically modified food product was a tomato which was transformed to delay its ripening. Researchers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam are currently working on delayed-ripening papaya in collaboration with the University of Nottingham and Zeneca.

Reduced dependence on fertilizers, pesticides and other agrochemicals. Most of the current commercial applications of modern biotechnology in agriculture are on reducing the dependence of farmers on agrochemicals. For example, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a soil bacterium that produces a protein with insecticidal qualities. Other biopesticides like Trichogramma spp., Ha NPV etc. are being increasingly popular in agricultural fields.

Biofertiliser is being considered as the most potential solution of the agricultural pollution today. The land loosing fertility to excessive use of chemicals may get replenished through the use of biofertilisers. It enhances the nutrient availability to cropping plants (by processes like atmosphere N-fixing or dissolving P present in the soil); and also imparts better health to plants and soil thereby enhancing crop yields in a moderate way. As the mode of action of biofertilisers follow natural course of actions, these generally, do not render any problems of enhanced salinity, acidity or alkalinity, high rate of soil erosion etc. Now a days the biofertilizers like Rhizobium, Azotobactor, Blue Green Algae, Azolla etc. are gaining importance as green manure to combat the problems of agricultural land pollution through chemical fertilizers.