Biotech and breeding – glimpses of the agricultural future – Farmers throughout the world will benefit
JAKARTA, 9 July 2010 (IRIN): Agricultural production in the developing world could be among the hardest-hit by climate change, but new research shows that food security can be improved by biotechnology and adapting traditional farming techniques, experts say.
Global demand for food is expected to double by the year 2050, when the population will reach more than nine billion, according to the World Bank, posing a serious challenge to global food security.
Mark Howden, an expert in climate change and agriculture at the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation said scientists need to be creative to face this challenge.
– To be able to feed this growing population, one thing we will need is an improvement in the study of genetics, he said at a recent climate change adaptation conference on Australia’s Gold Coast.
While the decades-old debate around genetic modification of food continues, many scientists believe biotechnology is part of the answer to the looming food security problem. They say it can help crops resist extreme weather and the pests and bacteria expected to come with it.
Sureshkumar Balasubramanian, a lecturer at the University of Queensland, said we should not be afraid of genetic modification. Balasubramanian recently discovered a new gene form that could potentially help farmers cultivate more crops in a shorter period.
He discovered the ACD6 gene form while comparing the biological makeup of plants that grew at different rates in different parts of the world.
– We found that some of the plants grew slower than others because they were developing this gene to fight pathogens (sygdomsfremkaldere), he told IRIN.
– In a situation where pathogens are not a threat to crops, removing this gene will speed up crop growth. This could be beneficial in parts of the world that are experiencing shorter harvest periods because of changing weather patterns, noted he.
– But genetic diversity is important. If I were to design an agricultural area, even if there is no pathogen threat, I would make sure around 10 percent of the plants had this gene. Just because there is no pathogen in an area now, does not mean there won’t be tomorrow, because we do not know how the climate will change, Balasubramanian stated.
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