Yale University

One of the major environmental problems in the world today is water pollution and soil damage from agrochemicals. In 1984 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a report that stated, “..... groundwater contamination looms as a major environmental issue of the 1980’s.” It is quite likely that it will loom even larger in the 1990’s. However, there is increasing interest in low impact agriculture as a potential alternative to heavy agrochemical use. This is evidenced by the March, 1986 report of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment entitled Technology, Public Policy, and the Changing Structure of American agriculture. The report states: “Although organic farming maintains soil quality better and reduces contamination of air, water, soil, and the final food products, much research is needed to determine how to maximize the integration of organic practices”

(U.S.O.T.A., 1986).However, the world demand for agricultural products, especially food is such that new insights and techniques are required in order to achieve sufficient and sustainable yields to meet this demand and prevent world hunger. Another current development stemming from molecular agriculture is the production of herbicide resistant plants. While this should increase agricultural productivity it is not necessarily desirable from an environmental point of view, depending upon how it is used. With these new herbicide resistant varieties of crop plants it will be possible to apply considerably greater levels of herbicides to the soil. Treatments that can help