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Page added on November 19, 2016
GMO Crops Could Help Feed the World
For many people, “GMO” is a scary word. Genetically modified organisms have been controversial for years, with a major criticism being that they do nothing to significantly increase crop yields. But new research from the University of Illinois shows otherwise.
Researchers found that by boosting the levels of three proteins involved in photosynthesis they could increase plant productivity by up to 20 percent. Stephen Long, plant biology and crop sciences professor at University of Illinois, led the study with postdoctoral researchers Katarzyna Glowacka and Johannes Kromdijik. They used tobacco plants in field trials to confirm that the efficiency of photosynthesis can be increased to produce higher yields of plants, something that many scientists once thought impossible.
Long and has team chose to use tobacco plants because they’re so easily modified. That researchers are optimistic the technique will translate to a number of other food crops.
“We expect it to work for all (plants), although we cannot be sure until we will see the same yield increases in seeds. We have started to try cowpea, which is an important vegetable protein source in sub-Saharan Africa, rice and cassava,” Long told Seeker.
The field trials focused on a process that plants use to shield themselves from the sun. If crop leaves are exposed to direct sunlight, they will absorb more of it than they can use, which sometimes bleaches the leaves. To avoid this, plants use a process called nonphotochemical quenching (NPQ) which releases all the excess energy as heat.
But when a leaf finds itself in the shade, from a cloud or another plant for example, the process slows down, sometimes taking up to half an hour. The shade limits the photosynthesis and the nonphotochemical quenching wastes light as heat.
Long and his team calculated that, depending on the plant, as much as 30 percent of productivity was being lost.
Krishna Niyogi, a co-author of the study and a Berkeley researcher, and Long found that increasing the level of three proteins the tobacco plant could help speed up recovery.
Field tests proved this to be true. Two of the modified plant lines tested showed 20 percent higher productivity, and the third showed a 14 percent increase, compared to the unaltered tobacco plants.
The research was funded by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the condition that any agricultural products resulting from the findings be made available to farmers in developing countries in Africa and South Asia.
Long’s findings offer some good news in contrast to the grim forecast for global food security. The United Nations predicts that global crop production will need to increase by 70 percent on the land we’re currently using by the year 2050 in order to feed the world population.
Another developing approach to increasing crop yields is vertical farming, which is the ability to grow crops indoors in stacked vertical structures, thereby taking up less land. But Long isn’t’ optimistic.
“It’s extremely expensive,” he said, “and while you achieve more per acre, the structure casts shadows on the surrounding land and adjacent structures, decreasing their yield. Vertical farming could have a place for high value crops in cities, but would not be a solution to the additional food projected to be needed.”
Long points out that farming techniques like altering photosynthesis are important because they don’t require additional land. “This is why we and others are undertaking this work to try to provide crop varieties that will deliver this extra food without moving onto more land,” he said.
19 Comments on "GMO Crops Could Help Feed the World"
Sissyfuss on Sat, 19th Nov 2016 11:15 am
Yeah, and monkeys could fly outta my butt!
Baptised on Sat, 19th Nov 2016 11:51 am
For every thing the GMO’s gives, it will exact a price in return.
Davy on Sat, 19th Nov 2016 12:15 pm
The new modern is the old modern. We need to be doing food locally and living within the seasons. We need to be using the nutrient cycle which means including animals in the process. In the transition time between modern man and postmodern man we could be doing both. We just can’t leave industrial agriculture based on oil and globalism and support the populations we have currently. That is not an option but we can leave it slowly and begin now. We can be less exposed to a collapse in the modern food chain instead of where we are now. The biggest thing we could do is make a huge effort to stabilize population. No amount of fancy GMO agriculture is going to matter if population keeps increasing.
What is more evident is modern scientific agriculture is a failure. GMO is not increasing yields over the long term. GMO is a losing that battle and GMO is basically a battle against nature. Nature always wins so GMO is a dead end. We need to cooperate with nature not fight her. Climate change is going to be the biggest variable. If there is a way we could start making changes to prepare for the worst of climate change then we need to be doing that. Having a global agricultural economy based on global food monocultures being traded over great distances regardless of season is something with no future post fossil fuels and in the new age of abrupt climate change. Instead of efficiency based on globalism being the business model of modern agriculture we need resilience and sustainability. Those terms are worn out but still ring true. The answers are many but few. There are many small things we can do but no silver bullet. We are in overshoot and facing a die off if we don’t get our shit together. What is certain is more of the same is not the answer.
Apneaman on Sat, 19th Nov 2016 12:26 pm
Of course big Ag gonna need some more subsidies to pull this off seeing how they are so impoverished.
Another techno utopia hopium piece of trash.
Apneaman on Sat, 19th Nov 2016 12:41 pm
BTW, how is the other big, big pharma, coming along with fixing up that other horror show right around the corner?
A ‘slow catastrophe’ unfolds as the golden age of antibiotics comes to an end
“It was a milestone public health officials have been anticipating for years. In a steady march, disease-causing microbes have evolved ways to evade the bulwark of medications used to treat bacterial infections. For a variety of those illnesses, only colistin continued to work every time. Now this last line of defense had been breached as well.”
“The problem goes beyond treating infections. As bacterial resistance grows, Lesho said, “we’re all at risk of losing our access” to medical miracles we’ve come to take for granted: elective surgeries, joint replacements, organ transplants, cancer chemotherapies. These treatments give bacteria an opportunity to hitch a ride on a catheter or an unwashed hand and invade an already vulnerable patient.”
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-antibiotic-resistance-20160711-snap-story.html
“The introduction to a recent World Health Organization (WHO) report asks people to imagine a “post-antibiotic era,” in which common infections and minor injuries begin killing people because the antibiotics used to treat them no longer work.
“Far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, [this] is instead a very real possibility for the 21st century,” the report continues.”
https://articles.extension.org/pages/70596/are-we-approaching-a-post-antibiotic-era-if-so-whats-the-connection-to-animal-agriculture
Apneaman on Sat, 19th Nov 2016 12:46 pm
The NHS is buying drugs from pharmaceutical companies in India whose dirty production methods are fuelling the rise of superbugs
“The growth in superbugs – infections which are resistant to antibiotics – is one of the biggest public health crises facing the world today, and pollution in drug companies’ supply chains is one of its causes.”
“New tests on water samples taken outside pharmaceutical factories in India which sell to the NHS found they contained bacteria which were resistant to the antibiotics made inside the plants.
This suggests industrial waste containing active antibiotic ingredients is being leaked into the surrounding environment. Studies have shown how this causes nearby bacteria to develop immunity to the drugs – creating ‘superbugs’ – and that those resistant bacteria then spread around the world.”
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2988263/dirty_production_of_nhs_antibiotics_in_india_helping_to_create_superbugs.html
“India is a global center of antibiotic manufacture. 80% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used by pharmaceutical companies worldwide, including the United States and Europe, are made in China. Following their manufacture, most of these ingredients are exported to India for processing and subsequent worldwide sale. The good manufacturing practices in China and India do not include environmental safeguards.”
http://www.contagionlive.com/news/the-world-faces-hurdles-in-the-fight-against-antibiotic-resistance
peakyeast on Sat, 19th Nov 2016 4:31 pm
Re big ag: A lot of the socalled growth in foods are just water. The greens today are bloated with water. An expert had examined the “solids” content in vegetables. And between the 1970 and 1990 the solids in a tomato dwindled 60%. It was replaced with water.
I think this is a huge catastrophe. We are transporting enormeous amounts of water – not nutrients. Imagine the waste in freezing energy, transport energy and so forth. At the same time we think we produce more food while actually just bloating it.
Bob on Sat, 19th Nov 2016 6:57 pm
GMO has failed. There has been no increased production of crops by GMOs. GMOs should be dumped into the trash bin of history; they have failed.
makati1 on Sat, 19th Nov 2016 7:10 pm
“He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation.” – James A. Garfield
Even more important than money:
“He who controls the SEED supply of a nation controls the nation.” Or the world.
Imagine if 80+% of the seeds needed every planting season were controlled by GMO corporations and next year, they decided to not sell any. (It is illegal to save GMO crop seeds for the next year.)
Bingo! Instant world wide famine. Deaths on a mega scale as the food runs out. Cannot happen? Why not? Have the Big Ag corporations gotten religion and morals. Who owns them? The elite, that’s who. LMAO
Boat on Sun, 20th Nov 2016 12:58 am
mak,
Playing what if with mak. What if gmo products were regulated out of existence. Let the immediate starving commence.
GregT on Sun, 20th Nov 2016 1:35 am
“What if gmo products were regulated out of existence. Let the immediate starving commence.”
In your world Boat perhaps, for those not dependant on GMO products like you are, not so much.
Boat on Sun, 20th Nov 2016 3:39 am
Gmo corn and soy beans are large exports from the US. The last corn on the cob gmo or not was 10 cent per lb. I froze a bunch of it. Seems to be a winning tech.
makati1 on Sun, 20th Nov 2016 5:04 am
Boat, if they were regulated out of existence, there would be NO change in the food supply. GMO is NOT more productive, just more profitable for the Big Ag corporations. Not all of us are worshipers at the Church of the Techie Fanatics. Some of us live in the real world where most of the seeds are still NON-GMO.
Boat on Sun, 20th Nov 2016 5:40 am
mak,
Google dude, yields go up 30 percent. That’s why farmers choose gmo seeds. Not to mention more diese resistant and drought resistant.
Davy on Sun, 20th Nov 2016 6:26 am
Boat, you ever grown anything more than tomatoes? Nope, yields are not up 30% because of GMO. That is just outright BS. Yields are unsustainably up for several reasons and it is the excessive use of chemicals, fertilizers, and diesel intensive agriculture that continue to marginally and briefly raise yields. GMO has not significantly improved agriculture. It at most has saved farmers some money with chemicals and that is a losing battle with nature just like anti-biotics. GMO took agriculture on a new and dangerous direction of agribusiness marketing that is less diverse with unproven techniques. If you take any of the traditional crop hybridization minus any GMO influence you will see little if any yield growth difference. If there is yield growth it is ephemeral because nature catches up to science and eventually the drop is even worse. GMO is a dead end and a disaster in the making. It is an economic thing not an improvement to the nature of things.
The real direction and importance will be localization and seasonality of food within that localization. It will be more human contact to food and less diesel. Slow food and less processed food is the key not more dirty science. Less choices with better choices within less choices. It will focus on health over “tasty” and natural over energy intensity. Taste will be real not artificially engineered “tasty” This is where the real gains are not agribusiness profits. Either way there are too many people so we damn sure better start preparing for an economic disaster in the making with globalism and agribusiness. GMO is the problem not the answer.
I would challenge you to list your references also. They would likely be a distortion of a vast marketing campaign with false claims. GMO is a vast hijacking of diversity of humans and nature. Agribusiness is engage in crimes against humanity with the introduction of GMO’s to the third world where they do not belong. There is so much to global agriculture that your reference would take up many pages and be beyond the scope of this board. You are again talking out your ass. Please wipe you ass it stinks.
makati1 on Sun, 20th Nov 2016 6:38 am
Boat, did you take lessons on stupidity or are you so invested in the stuff you pimp for that you cannot admit that you made a mistake? Your ideas are pure bullshit. You argue against logic, intelligence and the wisdom* some of us may have from living a long life in the real world.
* Wisdom: the quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.
Shortend on Sun, 20th Nov 2016 8:25 am
Another one bites the dust!
Looks like GMO will be the last stalk standing
They grow all kinds of fruits and vegetables in this little valley — cabbage and carrots, squash and strawberries — and then load them onto trucks bound for small towns and big cities.
But in this place where a seed can hardly fail to sprout, this year’s harvest has brought only meager returns. Steady rain in the summer never allowed the fields to dry out, leading to the rise of bacteria and the spread of disease that killed dozens of acres of crops at Featherstone.
It was a worst-case scenario, workers say, that has left them to wonder if the farm might collapse.
“An auction sale in March is a real possibility,” said owner Jack Hedin, who founded the certified organic farm in 1997. “This was our worst year ever. It was a catastrophe. It looked like a nuclear wasteland, some of these fields.
http://www.winonadailynews.com/news/local/our-worst-year-ever-after-major-crop-loss-featherstone-farm/article_d1c88c2e-8500-5b4e-8d73-e31e983a64cd.html
“The community has always supported us,” he said — and so he’s appealing to the community one more time in the hope of raising $150,000 by Thanksgiving to help save the farm
Nah….rather go through the Taco Bell drive thru…(sarcasm)
Curmudgeon Thinker on Sun, 20th Nov 2016 9:12 pm
How about we DON’T FEED THE WORLD?
Wouldn’t that actually be a good idea?
Consider the following advantages:
Lower population
Lower consumption
Less pollution
Less environmental destruction
Less species extinction
Less C02
Less competition
Less support for Monsanto
Less corporate monopoly
More freedom
More space
Opportunity for habitat to come back
Opportunity for species to recover
Humans f’n stupid. They think they “own” the planet and all of the resources within it. They also think they have this “right” by divine decree.
Well, absolutely none of this is factually true. Instead, humans have destroyed much of the planet and the life forms within it, in its stupid quest to “control” and “own” it all.
It’s time to give it back. Before it’s too late. It was never ours in the first place.
So how about LESS for a change? Less humans, less development, less growth, less EVERYTHING human-related?
Wake up people – it is the ONLY option that makes sense now.
WE NEED TO RUN AWAY FROM GROWTH AND INSTEAD EMBRACE DOWNSIZING OURSELVES.
makati1 on Sun, 20th Nov 2016 10:14 pm
Cur, are you volunteering to be first to go?