Modified crops the
way of the future
By Bruce Johnstone
Source: The Leader-Post (
September 26, 2008
via CheckBiotech
More genetically modified crops must be developed if
agricultural producers are to meet the challenge of global food shortages and
climate change, a Biotech Week event was told Thursday.
"Technology
prevented mass starvation in the 20th Century,'' said David Dennis, CEO of
Performance Plants Inc., which operates plant biotechnology facilities in
"Technology will solve the problems of the 21st
Century, I believe,'' added Dennis, a former Queen's University plant
scientist, who founded PPI in 1995.
Dennis said the global agriculture industry is facing a
number of challenges, namely water shortages, climate change and yield
volatility that threaten to cause large-scale crop failures and mass
starvation.
Agriculture biotechnology - genetically modifying plants to
improve their productivity, size and resistance to drought and disease - could
provide the solution to these challenges, he added.
For example, PPI has used gene-modification technology to
improve crop yields in corn, canola and soybeans by 15 to 25 per cent by
improving their drought resistance.
GM technology has also been used to help protect crops from
heat stress and use water more efficiently, as well as increase biomass and
carbohydrate content for biofuels crops.
Contrary to popular misconception, GM-modified crops have
"no negative impacts'' on the quality, safety or quantity of the food they
produce, Dennis added.
"The technology works under a lot of conditions. There
appears to be no negative impact of the technology at all."
Daren Coppock, CEO of the National
Association of Wheat Growers in the
"Seven of the last 10 years, we've consumed more wheat
locally (in the
Corn and soybeans are moving west and north into traditional
wheat-growing areas in the
"Even under the most optimistic scenario, (one expert)
does not see wheat acres exceeding 50 million when it used to be almost 80
(million)."
The need to improve crop yields is another "compelling
case for biotechnology," Coppock added. While
wheat yields have remained "flat" at around 40 bushels per acre, corn
yields have been expanding four times faster - thanks to biotechnology, he
said.
"The longer we wait to deal with this problem, the
bigger the hole we've dug for ourselves. That's why there's a sense of urgency
by our producers to get this (biotechnology) ball rolling as soon as we can.''
But even if GM-modified wheat varieties were approved
tomorrow, it would take 10 years to get them into production, he added.
"Our board has set a goal of a 20-per-cent yield
increase in 10 years, with the fundamental assumption that biotech
commercialization is part of that answer. We won't get there without it.''
Source: The Leader-Post (
greenbio.checkbiotech.org