Coconut oil has become a victim of biotechnology advances in the United States, with researchers succeeding in increasing the lauric acid of rapeseed or canola oil from zero to 60 percent.
This, Dr. Calixto M. Protacio says in an advance copy of an article to be published soon, was made possible through the use of recombinant di-ribonucleic acid (DNA) technology.
"Biotechnology has turned out to be double edged sword, with success in another crop turning out to be detrimental to the market of coconut oil," Protacio said.
The success may have spelled a temporary setback to coconut oil producers and the Philippine Coconut Authority under Administrator Oscar Garin, but it does not reduce the importance of coconut oil as a major product of the country.
"Why should we care about this development? Because the only previous significant source of lauric acid was coconut oil. This means that coconut oil may be substituted by the cheaper and more available canola oil," Protacio added.
"Fortunately, lauric acid content is not the only consideration. Coconut oil also contains many medium chain fatty acids that cannot be found in other vegetable oils, thus, it still maintains its competitive advantage," he said.
To beat the competition at their own game, at least two laboratories at the University of the Philippines at Los Banos "are busy in re-engineering the coconut so that it will also increase its lauric acid content."
"They have isolated and cloned the genes responsible for lauric acid accumulation," he said.
This initial accomplishment is a profitable step for local companies that can mass produce coconut oil with higher lauric acid content than canola oil.
"Unfortunately, there remains a formidable stumbling block; coconut lacks a reliable, reproducible regeneration system. While it is possible to transfer improved genes to coconut cells, the transformed cells still cannot be reproducibly regenerated into whole plants at this time," Protacio said.
He said research is ongoing to develop this regeneration system. "Some coconut palms have actually been regenerated through tissue culture but the method remains to be perfected," Protacio said. - GMANews.TV
31 Oct 2008
Scientists develop cancer fighting tomato
A purple tomato genetically engineered to contain nutrients more commonly seen in dark berries helped prevent cancer in mice, British researchers said on Sunday.The finding, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, bolsters the idea that plants can be genetically modified to make people healthier.
Cancer-prone mice fed the modified fruit lived significantly longer than animals fed a standard diet with and without regular tomatoes, Cathie Martin and colleagues at the government-funded John Innes Center in Britain reported.
"The effect was much bigger than we had expected," said Martin, a plant biologist.
The study focused on anthocyanins, a type of antioxidant found in berries such as blackberries and blackcurrants that have been shown to lower risk of cancer, heart disease and some neurological diseases.
While an easy health boost, many people do not eat enough of these fruits, the researchers said.
Using genes that help color the snapdragon flower, the researchers discovered they could get the tomatoes to make anthocyanins -- turning the tomato purple in the process.
Mice genetically engineered to develop cancer lived an average of 182 days when they were fed the purple tomatoes, compared to 142 days for animals on the standard diet.
"It is enormously encouraging to believe that by changing diet, or specific components in the diet, you can improve health in animals and possibly humans," Martin said in a telephone interview.
The researchers cautioned that trials in humans are a long way off and the next step is to investigate how the antioxidants actually affect the tumors to promote better health.
But the findings do bolster research suggesting that people can significantly improve their health by making simple changes to the daily diet, other researchers said.
"It's exciting to see new techniques that could potentially make healthy foods even better for us," said Dr. Lara Bennett, science information officer at Cancer Research UK.
"But it's too early to say whether anthocyanins obtained through diet could help to reduce the risk of cancer."
Source : Reuters, UK
Rs100cr Biotech Pharma IT park planned
The Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited has been asked by the Orissa government to develop a Rs 100 crore Biotech Pharma IT park at Andharua near Bhubaneswar.
The park will be developed over 64.86 acres in public-private-partnership (PPP) mode. The project is expected to promote biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and information technology industries in the state, official sources said. Bharat Biotech has significant experience in the development and successful commercialization of technology parks in India. It has also successfully developed an integrated food biotech park in Bangalore.
The government has allotted 54.96 acres for the project which will be handed over in two phases. The land will be given in the form of a long term lease basis and the company will be required to make commitment on time bound development of infrastructure and facilities in the park.
A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will be formed by the company to implement the project which will execute the lease cum development agreement of the company with Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO). “The project is expected to be completed in about 8 years and the state government and IDCO will provide all external infrastructure such as road connectivity, water supply, power supply with 33 KVA sub-station”, a senior official of the state science and technology department said.
A Biotechnology Incubation Centre (BIC) will also be developed over 10 acres of land within the park. This facility will be used by researchers, entrepreneurs and students. The department of biotechnology, Government of India, has assured funding for the equipment or instrumentation of this 'Centre of Excellence' within the park.
Source : Business-Standard
The park will be developed over 64.86 acres in public-private-partnership (PPP) mode. The project is expected to promote biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and information technology industries in the state, official sources said. Bharat Biotech has significant experience in the development and successful commercialization of technology parks in India. It has also successfully developed an integrated food biotech park in Bangalore.
The government has allotted 54.96 acres for the project which will be handed over in two phases. The land will be given in the form of a long term lease basis and the company will be required to make commitment on time bound development of infrastructure and facilities in the park.
A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will be formed by the company to implement the project which will execute the lease cum development agreement of the company with Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO). “The project is expected to be completed in about 8 years and the state government and IDCO will provide all external infrastructure such as road connectivity, water supply, power supply with 33 KVA sub-station”, a senior official of the state science and technology department said.
A Biotechnology Incubation Centre (BIC) will also be developed over 10 acres of land within the park. This facility will be used by researchers, entrepreneurs and students. The department of biotechnology, Government of India, has assured funding for the equipment or instrumentation of this 'Centre of Excellence' within the park.
Source : Business-Standard
27 Oct 2008
Hawaii County Bans Biotech Coffee
The professional anti-biotech alarmists over at the Center for Food Safety are crowing in a press release (not yet available online) that the Hawaii County Council has banned growing biotech coffee and taro. According to the press release:
The new ordinance, which makes it unlawful to grow genetically engineered (GE) coffee or taro anywhere on the Island of Hawaii, was strongly supported by coffee and taro farmers, and passed by a 9-0 vote of the Council on October 9th.
"Coffee growers testified that the planting of genetically engineered coffee would contaminate and damage markets for their premium Kona coffee, costing them their livelihoods. Many cited past episodes where biotech rice and corn have contaminated conventional varieties, resulting in marketplace rejection, dramatically lower prices, and large losses to farmers.
Coffee farmers argued that they would lose their "specialty coffee" status and/or organic certification if biotech coffee were ever planted on Hawaii Island. The Kona coffee industry brings more than $25 million into the state each year."
Beside fears of "contamination," some residents apparently brought up possible health concerns:
"There were compelling testimonies from mothers of children who have complex allergies. Allergic reactions are one potential health threat of biotech crops, and taro is known world-wide as one the most hypo-allergenic foods on earth."
Never mind that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that any of the current varieties of biotech crops cause allergic reactions in people.
The coffee and taro growers should look at what happened to their neighbors who grow biotech papayas. In the 1990s, papaya growing in Hawaii was nearly extinct due to the ringspot virus. Fortunately, researchers developed a biotech variety that resists the virus, thus reviving the industry.
Other researchers have now developed a biotech variety of coffee that is resistant to insects such as the coffee leaf miner. Perhaps those nice Kona coffee growers will change their minds about biotech should the leaf miner ever make it to Hawaii.
http://www.truthabouttrade.org/content/view/12614/54/
The new ordinance, which makes it unlawful to grow genetically engineered (GE) coffee or taro anywhere on the Island of Hawaii, was strongly supported by coffee and taro farmers, and passed by a 9-0 vote of the Council on October 9th.
"Coffee growers testified that the planting of genetically engineered coffee would contaminate and damage markets for their premium Kona coffee, costing them their livelihoods. Many cited past episodes where biotech rice and corn have contaminated conventional varieties, resulting in marketplace rejection, dramatically lower prices, and large losses to farmers.
Coffee farmers argued that they would lose their "specialty coffee" status and/or organic certification if biotech coffee were ever planted on Hawaii Island. The Kona coffee industry brings more than $25 million into the state each year."
Beside fears of "contamination," some residents apparently brought up possible health concerns:
"There were compelling testimonies from mothers of children who have complex allergies. Allergic reactions are one potential health threat of biotech crops, and taro is known world-wide as one the most hypo-allergenic foods on earth."
Never mind that there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that any of the current varieties of biotech crops cause allergic reactions in people.
The coffee and taro growers should look at what happened to their neighbors who grow biotech papayas. In the 1990s, papaya growing in Hawaii was nearly extinct due to the ringspot virus. Fortunately, researchers developed a biotech variety that resists the virus, thus reviving the industry.
Other researchers have now developed a biotech variety of coffee that is resistant to insects such as the coffee leaf miner. Perhaps those nice Kona coffee growers will change their minds about biotech should the leaf miner ever make it to Hawaii.
http://www.truthabouttrade.org/content/view/12614/54/
Less water, more biotech
To satisfy the world's growing demand for food, scientists are trying to pull off a genetic trick that nature itself has had trouble accomplishing in millions of years of evolution. They want to create varieties of corn, wheat and other crops that can thrive with little water.
As the world's population expands and global warming alters weather patterns, water shortages are expected to hold back efforts to grow more food. People drink only a quart or two of water every day, but the food they eat in a typical day, including plants and meat, requires 2,000 to 3,000 quarts to produce.
For companies that manage to get "more crop per drop," the payoff could be huge, and scientists at many of the biggest agricultural companies are busy tweaking plant genes in search of the winning formula.
Monsanto, the biggest crop biotechnology company, says its first drought-tolerant corn will reach farmers in four years and will provide a 10 percent increase in yields in states like Nebraska and Kansas that tend to get less rainfall than eastern parts of the Corn Belt.
At a recent farm show here called Husker Harvest Days, a few thousand farmers were guided past a small plot on which Monsanto had grown its drought-tolerant corn next to a similar variety without the "drought gene." A transparent tent had shielded the plants from any rain through the hot Nebraska summer.
The results were, to be sure, less than miraculous. Both the drought-tolerant and the comparison plants were turning brown and shriveling, and they were about 3 feet shorter than the lush green irrigated corn growing nearby. But the drought-tolerant plants, which also contained a second gene to protect their roots from a pest, were a little greener and a few inches taller than the comparison plants, and their cobs were missing fewer kernels.
Monsanto said the improvement was significant. And the Nebraska and Kansas farmers who toured Monsanto's plot, many of them facing water-use restrictions and soaring pumping costs for irrigation, said any improvement would be welcome.
"We pump water like there's no end, and that's not going to last forever," said Tom Schuele, a farmer in Cedar Rapids, Neb. Monsanto's competitors, including DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred unit and Syngenta, say they also plan to introduce water-efficient corn in a few years. And companies are working on plants that can stand up to heat, cold, salty soils and other tough environments.
A small California company called Arcadia Biosciences is trying to develop crops that need only half as much nitrogen fertilizer as a conventional plant. Fertilizer is crucial to modern food production, but the large quantities used today damage the environment. And because fertilizer is made from natural gas, its costs have soared along with other energy costs.
Public sector scientists are also on the hunt. Researchers at the University of California and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines are developing rice that can survive flooding, which causes major crop losses for poor farmers in the lowlands of India and other countries. While rice is typically grown in standing water, the plants will die if submerged for more than a few days.
Many of these advanced crops are being developed using genetic engineering. The technology, already used to make crops that can resist weeds and insects, has spurred worldwide controversy. But in an era in which people are marching in the streets of many countries to demand more food at lower prices, low-water crops might win over areas that now shun biotech crops, such as most of Africa.
"Drought tolerance to me is the most critical entry point," said Calestous Juma, a professor of international development at Harvard who has advised African governments on biotechnology. "This is kind of reopening the window for genetic modification."
Critics accuse the biotechnology industry and its backers of exploiting the recent global food crisis to push a technology that has been oversold and that could have unanticipated health and environmental effects.
Indeed, many past predictions of how biotechnology would create novel crops have not come to fruition. And some experts say Monsanto and its peers have not published enough information to prove they can make drought-tolerant crops.
"I want to see more, I guess, from the Monsanto work before I'd be convinced they've got it," said John S. Boyer, an emeritus professor at the University of Delaware.
Safety questions must also be answered. Changing the water needs of a plant requires a more fundamental alteration of its metabolism than adding a gene to make the plant resistant to insects. "The potential for unintended side effects is greater, so the testing has to be greater," said David A. Lightfoot, a professor of genetics and genomics at Southern Illinois University.
How much could be gained by use of these new crops is not yet clear. A report in 2007 by the International Water Management Institute, which is part of an international network of agricultural research centers, concluded that genetic improvements would have only a "moderate" impact over the next 15 to 20 years in making crops more efficient in using water.
"Greater, easier and less contentious gains," it said, could come from better managing water supplies, rather than trying to develop crops that can flourish with less water.
But many experts say the situation is grave enough that all approaches must be tried simultaneously.
Poor growing conditions can reduce crop yields by 70 percent or more below their potential. American farmers, for instance, average about 150 bushels of corn an acre. But David K. Hula of Charles City, Va., won a competition last year by harvesting nearly 386 bushels an acre, a measure of what modern crop varieties can achieve under optimal conditions.
No single approach is likely to suffice for all types of dry conditions. "Probably no one has found the magic gene yet," said Jian-Kang Zhu, a professor of plant biology at the University of California, Riverside. "Probably there is no magic gene."
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081027/BUSINESS/810270311/1011/BUSINESS
As the world's population expands and global warming alters weather patterns, water shortages are expected to hold back efforts to grow more food. People drink only a quart or two of water every day, but the food they eat in a typical day, including plants and meat, requires 2,000 to 3,000 quarts to produce.
For companies that manage to get "more crop per drop," the payoff could be huge, and scientists at many of the biggest agricultural companies are busy tweaking plant genes in search of the winning formula.
Monsanto, the biggest crop biotechnology company, says its first drought-tolerant corn will reach farmers in four years and will provide a 10 percent increase in yields in states like Nebraska and Kansas that tend to get less rainfall than eastern parts of the Corn Belt.
At a recent farm show here called Husker Harvest Days, a few thousand farmers were guided past a small plot on which Monsanto had grown its drought-tolerant corn next to a similar variety without the "drought gene." A transparent tent had shielded the plants from any rain through the hot Nebraska summer.
The results were, to be sure, less than miraculous. Both the drought-tolerant and the comparison plants were turning brown and shriveling, and they were about 3 feet shorter than the lush green irrigated corn growing nearby. But the drought-tolerant plants, which also contained a second gene to protect their roots from a pest, were a little greener and a few inches taller than the comparison plants, and their cobs were missing fewer kernels.
Monsanto said the improvement was significant. And the Nebraska and Kansas farmers who toured Monsanto's plot, many of them facing water-use restrictions and soaring pumping costs for irrigation, said any improvement would be welcome.
"We pump water like there's no end, and that's not going to last forever," said Tom Schuele, a farmer in Cedar Rapids, Neb. Monsanto's competitors, including DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred unit and Syngenta, say they also plan to introduce water-efficient corn in a few years. And companies are working on plants that can stand up to heat, cold, salty soils and other tough environments.
A small California company called Arcadia Biosciences is trying to develop crops that need only half as much nitrogen fertilizer as a conventional plant. Fertilizer is crucial to modern food production, but the large quantities used today damage the environment. And because fertilizer is made from natural gas, its costs have soared along with other energy costs.
Public sector scientists are also on the hunt. Researchers at the University of California and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines are developing rice that can survive flooding, which causes major crop losses for poor farmers in the lowlands of India and other countries. While rice is typically grown in standing water, the plants will die if submerged for more than a few days.
Many of these advanced crops are being developed using genetic engineering. The technology, already used to make crops that can resist weeds and insects, has spurred worldwide controversy. But in an era in which people are marching in the streets of many countries to demand more food at lower prices, low-water crops might win over areas that now shun biotech crops, such as most of Africa.
"Drought tolerance to me is the most critical entry point," said Calestous Juma, a professor of international development at Harvard who has advised African governments on biotechnology. "This is kind of reopening the window for genetic modification."
Critics accuse the biotechnology industry and its backers of exploiting the recent global food crisis to push a technology that has been oversold and that could have unanticipated health and environmental effects.
Indeed, many past predictions of how biotechnology would create novel crops have not come to fruition. And some experts say Monsanto and its peers have not published enough information to prove they can make drought-tolerant crops.
"I want to see more, I guess, from the Monsanto work before I'd be convinced they've got it," said John S. Boyer, an emeritus professor at the University of Delaware.
Safety questions must also be answered. Changing the water needs of a plant requires a more fundamental alteration of its metabolism than adding a gene to make the plant resistant to insects. "The potential for unintended side effects is greater, so the testing has to be greater," said David A. Lightfoot, a professor of genetics and genomics at Southern Illinois University.
How much could be gained by use of these new crops is not yet clear. A report in 2007 by the International Water Management Institute, which is part of an international network of agricultural research centers, concluded that genetic improvements would have only a "moderate" impact over the next 15 to 20 years in making crops more efficient in using water.
"Greater, easier and less contentious gains," it said, could come from better managing water supplies, rather than trying to develop crops that can flourish with less water.
But many experts say the situation is grave enough that all approaches must be tried simultaneously.
Poor growing conditions can reduce crop yields by 70 percent or more below their potential. American farmers, for instance, average about 150 bushels of corn an acre. But David K. Hula of Charles City, Va., won a competition last year by harvesting nearly 386 bushels an acre, a measure of what modern crop varieties can achieve under optimal conditions.
No single approach is likely to suffice for all types of dry conditions. "Probably no one has found the magic gene yet," said Jian-Kang Zhu, a professor of plant biology at the University of California, Riverside. "Probably there is no magic gene."
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081027/BUSINESS/810270311/1011/BUSINESS
Less water, more biotech
To satisfy the world's growing demand for food, scientists are trying to pull off a genetic trick that nature itself has had trouble accomplishing in millions of years of evolution. They want to create varieties of corn, wheat and other crops that can thrive with little water.
As the world's population expands and global warming alters weather patterns, water shortages are expected to hold back efforts to grow more food. People drink only a quart or two of water every day, but the food they eat in a typical day, including plants and meat, requires 2,000 to 3,000 quarts to produce.
For companies that manage to get "more crop per drop," the payoff could be huge, and scientists at many of the biggest agricultural companies are busy tweaking plant genes in search of the winning formula.
Monsanto, the biggest crop biotechnology company, says its first drought-tolerant corn will reach farmers in four years and will provide a 10 percent increase in yields in states like Nebraska and Kansas that tend to get less rainfall than eastern parts of the Corn Belt.
At a recent farm show here called Husker Harvest Days, a few thousand farmers were guided past a small plot on which Monsanto had grown its drought-tolerant corn next to a similar variety without the "drought gene." A transparent tent had shielded the plants from any rain through the hot Nebraska summer.
The results were, to be sure, less than miraculous. Both the drought-tolerant and the comparison plants were turning brown and shriveling, and they were about 3 feet shorter than the lush green irrigated corn growing nearby. But the drought-tolerant plants, which also contained a second gene to protect their roots from a pest, were a little greener and a few inches taller than the comparison plants, and their cobs were missing fewer kernels.
Monsanto said the improvement was significant. And the Nebraska and Kansas farmers who toured Monsanto's plot, many of them facing water-use restrictions and soaring pumping costs for irrigation, said any improvement would be welcome.
"We pump water like there's no end, and that's not going to last forever," said Tom Schuele, a farmer in Cedar Rapids, Neb. Monsanto's competitors, including DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred unit and Syngenta, say they also plan to introduce water-efficient corn in a few years. And companies are working on plants that can stand up to heat, cold, salty soils and other tough environments.
A small California company called Arcadia Biosciences is trying to develop crops that need only half as much nitrogen fertilizer as a conventional plant. Fertilizer is crucial to modern food production, but the large quantities used today damage the environment. And because fertilizer is made from natural gas, its costs have soared along with other energy costs.
Public sector scientists are also on the hunt. Researchers at the University of California and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines are developing rice that can survive flooding, which causes major crop losses for poor farmers in the lowlands of India and other countries. While rice is typically grown in standing water, the plants will die if submerged for more than a few days.
Many of these advanced crops are being developed using genetic engineering. The technology, already used to make crops that can resist weeds and insects, has spurred worldwide controversy. But in an era in which people are marching in the streets of many countries to demand more food at lower prices, low-water crops might win over areas that now shun biotech crops, such as most of Africa.
"Drought tolerance to me is the most critical entry point," said Calestous Juma, a professor of international development at Harvard who has advised African governments on biotechnology. "This is kind of reopening the window for genetic modification."
Critics accuse the biotechnology industry and its backers of exploiting the recent global food crisis to push a technology that has been oversold and that could have unanticipated health and environmental effects.
Indeed, many past predictions of how biotechnology would create novel crops have not come to fruition. And some experts say Monsanto and its peers have not published enough information to prove they can make drought-tolerant crops.
"I want to see more, I guess, from the Monsanto work before I'd be convinced they've got it," said John S. Boyer, an emeritus professor at the University of Delaware.
Safety questions must also be answered. Changing the water needs of a plant requires a more fundamental alteration of its metabolism than adding a gene to make the plant resistant to insects. "The potential for unintended side effects is greater, so the testing has to be greater," said David A. Lightfoot, a professor of genetics and genomics at Southern Illinois University.
How much could be gained by use of these new crops is not yet clear. A report in 2007 by the International Water Management Institute, which is part of an international network of agricultural research centers, concluded that genetic improvements would have only a "moderate" impact over the next 15 to 20 years in making crops more efficient in using water.
"Greater, easier and less contentious gains," it said, could come from better managing water supplies, rather than trying to develop crops that can flourish with less water.
But many experts say the situation is grave enough that all approaches must be tried simultaneously.
Poor growing conditions can reduce crop yields by 70 percent or more below their potential. American farmers, for instance, average about 150 bushels of corn an acre. But David K. Hula of Charles City, Va., won a competition last year by harvesting nearly 386 bushels an acre, a measure of what modern crop varieties can achieve under optimal conditions.
No single approach is likely to suffice for all types of dry conditions. "Probably no one has found the magic gene yet," said Jian-Kang Zhu, a professor of plant biology at the University of California, Riverside. "Probably there is no magic gene."
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081027/BUSINESS/810270311/1011/BUSINESS
As the world's population expands and global warming alters weather patterns, water shortages are expected to hold back efforts to grow more food. People drink only a quart or two of water every day, but the food they eat in a typical day, including plants and meat, requires 2,000 to 3,000 quarts to produce.
For companies that manage to get "more crop per drop," the payoff could be huge, and scientists at many of the biggest agricultural companies are busy tweaking plant genes in search of the winning formula.
Monsanto, the biggest crop biotechnology company, says its first drought-tolerant corn will reach farmers in four years and will provide a 10 percent increase in yields in states like Nebraska and Kansas that tend to get less rainfall than eastern parts of the Corn Belt.
At a recent farm show here called Husker Harvest Days, a few thousand farmers were guided past a small plot on which Monsanto had grown its drought-tolerant corn next to a similar variety without the "drought gene." A transparent tent had shielded the plants from any rain through the hot Nebraska summer.
The results were, to be sure, less than miraculous. Both the drought-tolerant and the comparison plants were turning brown and shriveling, and they were about 3 feet shorter than the lush green irrigated corn growing nearby. But the drought-tolerant plants, which also contained a second gene to protect their roots from a pest, were a little greener and a few inches taller than the comparison plants, and their cobs were missing fewer kernels.
Monsanto said the improvement was significant. And the Nebraska and Kansas farmers who toured Monsanto's plot, many of them facing water-use restrictions and soaring pumping costs for irrigation, said any improvement would be welcome.
"We pump water like there's no end, and that's not going to last forever," said Tom Schuele, a farmer in Cedar Rapids, Neb. Monsanto's competitors, including DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred unit and Syngenta, say they also plan to introduce water-efficient corn in a few years. And companies are working on plants that can stand up to heat, cold, salty soils and other tough environments.
A small California company called Arcadia Biosciences is trying to develop crops that need only half as much nitrogen fertilizer as a conventional plant. Fertilizer is crucial to modern food production, but the large quantities used today damage the environment. And because fertilizer is made from natural gas, its costs have soared along with other energy costs.
Public sector scientists are also on the hunt. Researchers at the University of California and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines are developing rice that can survive flooding, which causes major crop losses for poor farmers in the lowlands of India and other countries. While rice is typically grown in standing water, the plants will die if submerged for more than a few days.
Many of these advanced crops are being developed using genetic engineering. The technology, already used to make crops that can resist weeds and insects, has spurred worldwide controversy. But in an era in which people are marching in the streets of many countries to demand more food at lower prices, low-water crops might win over areas that now shun biotech crops, such as most of Africa.
"Drought tolerance to me is the most critical entry point," said Calestous Juma, a professor of international development at Harvard who has advised African governments on biotechnology. "This is kind of reopening the window for genetic modification."
Critics accuse the biotechnology industry and its backers of exploiting the recent global food crisis to push a technology that has been oversold and that could have unanticipated health and environmental effects.
Indeed, many past predictions of how biotechnology would create novel crops have not come to fruition. And some experts say Monsanto and its peers have not published enough information to prove they can make drought-tolerant crops.
"I want to see more, I guess, from the Monsanto work before I'd be convinced they've got it," said John S. Boyer, an emeritus professor at the University of Delaware.
Safety questions must also be answered. Changing the water needs of a plant requires a more fundamental alteration of its metabolism than adding a gene to make the plant resistant to insects. "The potential for unintended side effects is greater, so the testing has to be greater," said David A. Lightfoot, a professor of genetics and genomics at Southern Illinois University.
How much could be gained by use of these new crops is not yet clear. A report in 2007 by the International Water Management Institute, which is part of an international network of agricultural research centers, concluded that genetic improvements would have only a "moderate" impact over the next 15 to 20 years in making crops more efficient in using water.
"Greater, easier and less contentious gains," it said, could come from better managing water supplies, rather than trying to develop crops that can flourish with less water.
But many experts say the situation is grave enough that all approaches must be tried simultaneously.
Poor growing conditions can reduce crop yields by 70 percent or more below their potential. American farmers, for instance, average about 150 bushels of corn an acre. But David K. Hula of Charles City, Va., won a competition last year by harvesting nearly 386 bushels an acre, a measure of what modern crop varieties can achieve under optimal conditions.
No single approach is likely to suffice for all types of dry conditions. "Probably no one has found the magic gene yet," said Jian-Kang Zhu, a professor of plant biology at the University of California, Riverside. "Probably there is no magic gene."
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081027/BUSINESS/810270311/1011/BUSINESS
Less water, more biotech
To satisfy the world's growing demand for food, scientists are trying to pull off a genetic trick that nature itself has had trouble accomplishing in millions of years of evolution. They want to create varieties of corn, wheat and other crops that can thrive with little water.
As the world's population expands and global warming alters weather patterns, water shortages are expected to hold back efforts to grow more food. People drink only a quart or two of water every day, but the food they eat in a typical day, including plants and meat, requires 2,000 to 3,000 quarts to produce.
For companies that manage to get "more crop per drop," the payoff could be huge, and scientists at many of the biggest agricultural companies are busy tweaking plant genes in search of the winning formula.
Monsanto, the biggest crop biotechnology company, says its first drought-tolerant corn will reach farmers in four years and will provide a 10 percent increase in yields in states like Nebraska and Kansas that tend to get less rainfall than eastern parts of the Corn Belt.
At a recent farm show here called Husker Harvest Days, a few thousand farmers were guided past a small plot on which Monsanto had grown its drought-tolerant corn next to a similar variety without the "drought gene." A transparent tent had shielded the plants from any rain through the hot Nebraska summer.
The results were, to be sure, less than miraculous. Both the drought-tolerant and the comparison plants were turning brown and shriveling, and they were about 3 feet shorter than the lush green irrigated corn growing nearby. But the drought-tolerant plants, which also contained a second gene to protect their roots from a pest, were a little greener and a few inches taller than the comparison plants, and their cobs were missing fewer kernels.
Monsanto said the improvement was significant. And the Nebraska and Kansas farmers who toured Monsanto's plot, many of them facing water-use restrictions and soaring pumping costs for irrigation, said any improvement would be welcome.
"We pump water like there's no end, and that's not going to last forever," said Tom Schuele, a farmer in Cedar Rapids, Neb. Monsanto's competitors, including DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred unit and Syngenta, say they also plan to introduce water-efficient corn in a few years. And companies are working on plants that can stand up to heat, cold, salty soils and other tough environments.
A small California company called Arcadia Biosciences is trying to develop crops that need only half as much nitrogen fertilizer as a conventional plant. Fertilizer is crucial to modern food production, but the large quantities used today damage the environment. And because fertilizer is made from natural gas, its costs have soared along with other energy costs.
Public sector scientists are also on the hunt. Researchers at the University of California and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines are developing rice that can survive flooding, which causes major crop losses for poor farmers in the lowlands of India and other countries. While rice is typically grown in standing water, the plants will die if submerged for more than a few days.
Many of these advanced crops are being developed using genetic engineering. The technology, already used to make crops that can resist weeds and insects, has spurred worldwide controversy. But in an era in which people are marching in the streets of many countries to demand more food at lower prices, low-water crops might win over areas that now shun biotech crops, such as most of Africa.
"Drought tolerance to me is the most critical entry point," said Calestous Juma, a professor of international development at Harvard who has advised African governments on biotechnology. "This is kind of reopening the window for genetic modification."
Critics accuse the biotechnology industry and its backers of exploiting the recent global food crisis to push a technology that has been oversold and that could have unanticipated health and environmental effects.
Indeed, many past predictions of how biotechnology would create novel crops have not come to fruition. And some experts say Monsanto and its peers have not published enough information to prove they can make drought-tolerant crops.
"I want to see more, I guess, from the Monsanto work before I'd be convinced they've got it," said John S. Boyer, an emeritus professor at the University of Delaware.
Safety questions must also be answered. Changing the water needs of a plant requires a more fundamental alteration of its metabolism than adding a gene to make the plant resistant to insects. "The potential for unintended side effects is greater, so the testing has to be greater," said David A. Lightfoot, a professor of genetics and genomics at Southern Illinois University.
How much could be gained by use of these new crops is not yet clear. A report in 2007 by the International Water Management Institute, which is part of an international network of agricultural research centers, concluded that genetic improvements would have only a "moderate" impact over the next 15 to 20 years in making crops more efficient in using water.
"Greater, easier and less contentious gains," it said, could come from better managing water supplies, rather than trying to develop crops that can flourish with less water.
But many experts say the situation is grave enough that all approaches must be tried simultaneously.
Poor growing conditions can reduce crop yields by 70 percent or more below their potential. American farmers, for instance, average about 150 bushels of corn an acre. But David K. Hula of Charles City, Va., won a competition last year by harvesting nearly 386 bushels an acre, a measure of what modern crop varieties can achieve under optimal conditions.
No single approach is likely to suffice for all types of dry conditions. "Probably no one has found the magic gene yet," said Jian-Kang Zhu, a professor of plant biology at the University of California, Riverside. "Probably there is no magic gene."
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081027/BUSINESS/810270311/1011/BUSINESS
As the world's population expands and global warming alters weather patterns, water shortages are expected to hold back efforts to grow more food. People drink only a quart or two of water every day, but the food they eat in a typical day, including plants and meat, requires 2,000 to 3,000 quarts to produce.
For companies that manage to get "more crop per drop," the payoff could be huge, and scientists at many of the biggest agricultural companies are busy tweaking plant genes in search of the winning formula.
Monsanto, the biggest crop biotechnology company, says its first drought-tolerant corn will reach farmers in four years and will provide a 10 percent increase in yields in states like Nebraska and Kansas that tend to get less rainfall than eastern parts of the Corn Belt.
At a recent farm show here called Husker Harvest Days, a few thousand farmers were guided past a small plot on which Monsanto had grown its drought-tolerant corn next to a similar variety without the "drought gene." A transparent tent had shielded the plants from any rain through the hot Nebraska summer.
The results were, to be sure, less than miraculous. Both the drought-tolerant and the comparison plants were turning brown and shriveling, and they were about 3 feet shorter than the lush green irrigated corn growing nearby. But the drought-tolerant plants, which also contained a second gene to protect their roots from a pest, were a little greener and a few inches taller than the comparison plants, and their cobs were missing fewer kernels.
Monsanto said the improvement was significant. And the Nebraska and Kansas farmers who toured Monsanto's plot, many of them facing water-use restrictions and soaring pumping costs for irrigation, said any improvement would be welcome.
"We pump water like there's no end, and that's not going to last forever," said Tom Schuele, a farmer in Cedar Rapids, Neb. Monsanto's competitors, including DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred unit and Syngenta, say they also plan to introduce water-efficient corn in a few years. And companies are working on plants that can stand up to heat, cold, salty soils and other tough environments.
A small California company called Arcadia Biosciences is trying to develop crops that need only half as much nitrogen fertilizer as a conventional plant. Fertilizer is crucial to modern food production, but the large quantities used today damage the environment. And because fertilizer is made from natural gas, its costs have soared along with other energy costs.
Public sector scientists are also on the hunt. Researchers at the University of California and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines are developing rice that can survive flooding, which causes major crop losses for poor farmers in the lowlands of India and other countries. While rice is typically grown in standing water, the plants will die if submerged for more than a few days.
Many of these advanced crops are being developed using genetic engineering. The technology, already used to make crops that can resist weeds and insects, has spurred worldwide controversy. But in an era in which people are marching in the streets of many countries to demand more food at lower prices, low-water crops might win over areas that now shun biotech crops, such as most of Africa.
"Drought tolerance to me is the most critical entry point," said Calestous Juma, a professor of international development at Harvard who has advised African governments on biotechnology. "This is kind of reopening the window for genetic modification."
Critics accuse the biotechnology industry and its backers of exploiting the recent global food crisis to push a technology that has been oversold and that could have unanticipated health and environmental effects.
Indeed, many past predictions of how biotechnology would create novel crops have not come to fruition. And some experts say Monsanto and its peers have not published enough information to prove they can make drought-tolerant crops.
"I want to see more, I guess, from the Monsanto work before I'd be convinced they've got it," said John S. Boyer, an emeritus professor at the University of Delaware.
Safety questions must also be answered. Changing the water needs of a plant requires a more fundamental alteration of its metabolism than adding a gene to make the plant resistant to insects. "The potential for unintended side effects is greater, so the testing has to be greater," said David A. Lightfoot, a professor of genetics and genomics at Southern Illinois University.
How much could be gained by use of these new crops is not yet clear. A report in 2007 by the International Water Management Institute, which is part of an international network of agricultural research centers, concluded that genetic improvements would have only a "moderate" impact over the next 15 to 20 years in making crops more efficient in using water.
"Greater, easier and less contentious gains," it said, could come from better managing water supplies, rather than trying to develop crops that can flourish with less water.
But many experts say the situation is grave enough that all approaches must be tried simultaneously.
Poor growing conditions can reduce crop yields by 70 percent or more below their potential. American farmers, for instance, average about 150 bushels of corn an acre. But David K. Hula of Charles City, Va., won a competition last year by harvesting nearly 386 bushels an acre, a measure of what modern crop varieties can achieve under optimal conditions.
No single approach is likely to suffice for all types of dry conditions. "Probably no one has found the magic gene yet," said Jian-Kang Zhu, a professor of plant biology at the University of California, Riverside. "Probably there is no magic gene."
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081027/BUSINESS/810270311/1011/BUSINESS
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