Diversity productivity benefits

It is evident that new processes are increasingly important since consumers demand more improved and novel products and there is pressure to use and upgrade cheaper raw materials. Today industrial enzymes are used in the production of diverse products such as cheese, sausages, baked goods, juices, and egg white substitutes. They are used to reduce viscosity, improve extractions, carry out bioconversions, enhance separations, develop functionality, and create or intensify flavor. Enzymes can also be very important tools for protein modification since they provide fast reaction rates, mild conditions and high specificity which lead to economic, health, and safety benefits. ... 

For thousands of years, nature has provided humankind with a large variety of materials for the most diversified applications for its survival, such as food, energy, medicinal products, protection and defense tools, and others. The pharmaceutical industry has benefitted from such diversity of biomaterials and has exploited the use of natural products as sources of both drugs and excipients. One example of a promising biomaterial for pharmaceutical use is xylan, a hemicellulose largely found in nature, being considered the second most abundant polysaccharide after cellulose. 

While poisonous plants on grazing lands have a significant impact on livestock production throughout the world, the natural toxins (secondary metabolites) in the plant may have multiple and diverse functions, not only for the plant world but also for the benefit of mankind. Many current pharmaceuticals have been chemically optimized from natural toxins of plant origin. New plant compounds and familiar compounds with renewed interest, e.g., nutraceuticals, herbal preparations, nutritional supplements, etc, are increasingly finding their value in human nutrition and health. 

Making an overall balance, benefits fi om replacing natural high diversity with genetically modified crops are doubtful Recent extensive field experimentation with Chinese rice may be an indication variety has increa production (Zhu 2000). 

Historically, technological innovation has been a prime force in economic development. New processes and products have been credited with such diverse benefits as increased employment, increased labor productivity, new opportunities for preventing and curing disease, greater consumer comfort, and improvements in the balance of trade. 

Costs. It has been established that chemical firms are allocating R D resources to solve environmental protection problems. Even though this research may be highly desirable from a societal posture, it does represent a diversion of R D resources from traditional goals of product development and process improvement. This diversion represents "opportunity costs" or the loss that the firms sustain by foregoing the benefits that are provided by traditional research projects. 

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