Saikat Kumar Basu, Madhuleema Dutta, Aakash Goyal, Pankaj Kumar Bhowmik, Jitendra Kumar, Sanjib Nandy, Sandra Mansun Scagliusi and Rajib Prasad

Saikat Kumar Basu

1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada T1K 3M4; 2Department of Microbiology, Gurudas College, Kolkata, WB, India 700054

Madhuleema Dutta

Gurudas College, Kolkata Department of Microbiology, Gurudas College Road, Kolkata Kolkata, WB 700054 India

Aakash Goyal

Corresponding author: akgroyal@gmail.com
Lethbridge Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Lethbridge, AB Canada T1J 4B1

Pankaj Kumar Bhowmik

National Research Council, Plant Biotechnology Institute, Saskatoon, SK, Canada S7N 0WN

Jitendra Kumar

Indian Institute of Pulses Research, Kanpur, UP, India 208024

Sanjib Nandy

College of Agriculture and Bioresources, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada S7N 548

Sandra Mansun Scagliusi

Embrapa Wheat-CNPT, Tissue Culture Laboratory, Rodovia BR 285, Km 294, Passo Fundo, RS, Brazil 99001-970

Rajib Prasad

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada T1K 3M4; 2Department of Microbiology, Gurudas College, Kolkata, WB, India 700054

Post-green revolution advances made in biotechnology paved the way of cultivating the high-yielding, stress and disease resistant genetically modified (GM) varieties of wheat, rice, maize cotton and several other crops. The recent rapid commercialization of the genetically modified crops in Asia, Americas and Australia indicates the potentiality of this new technology. GM crops give higher yields and are rich in nutritional values containing vitamins and minerals and can thus can help to alleviate hunger and malnutrition of the growing population in the under developed and developing countries. It could also be possible to develop more biotic and abiotic stress resistant genotypes in these crops where it was difficult to develop due to the unavailability of genes of resistance in the crossing germplasms. However, further research and investigations are needed to popularize the cultivation of these crops in different parts of the world. This review provides an insight of the impact of GM crops on contemporary agriculture across the past few decades, traces its’ history across time, highlights new achievements and breakthroughs and discusses the future implication of this powerful technology in the coming few decades.