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Missed Opportunities
Kevin M. FoltaProfessor and Chair
Horticultural Sciences Department
kfolta.blogspot.com@kevinfolta
Advantages and Limitations
The technologies have allowed scientists to grow the same amount (or more) food with fewer or safer inputs.
Farmers have adopted the products faster than any other technologies.
The products have been safely used for 18 years with no health effects.
Implementation has been largely restricted to plants that can grow through herbicides and insect resistant varieties.
Resistant weeds and insects threaten the long-term sustainable use of these technologies.
Where do we all agree?
FarmersDeveloping World
The NeedyFood Safety
Environment
Consumers
Golden Rice
X
Farmers
Consumers
Environment
Needy
Opposition to golden rice cost $2 billion to farmers in developing countries and 1.4 million human years – Wesseler et al., 2014
Cassava
Virus Resistant Cassava (VIRCA)
Biocassava Plus (BC Plus)
250 million depend on cassava
50 million tons lost to virus.
X
X Farmers
Consumers
Environment
Needy
Golden Bananas Beta carotene producing
X
Farmers
Consumers
Environment
Needy
Survives moderate drought, especially at key times like flowering It is based on overexpression of a maize stress gene
Non transgenic transgenic
X
X Farmers
Consumers
Environment
Needy
Allergy-Free Peanuts
Peanut – RNAi suppression Ara h2
X
Farmers
Consumers
Environment
Needy
Allergy Free Wheat Using RNAi to repress gliadin levels
BS2 TomatoA pepper gene in tomato eases black spot and wilt.
X
X Farmers
Consumers
Environment
Needy
High Anthocyanin TomatoA transcription factor excites anthocyanin production in fruits
X
X Farmers
Consumers
Environment
Needy
X
Longer shelf life too.
Acrylamide Free, non Browning Potatoes
X
X
Farmers
Consumers
Environment
Needy
Non Browning ApplesSilencing a gene that leads to discoloration
X
X
Farmers
Consumers
Environment
Needy
Small Business!X
Grapes resistant to Pierce’s Disease
X
X
Farmers
Consumers
Environment
Needy
X
Improved Oil Composition
One acre of omega-3 producing soybeans yields as much oil as 10,000 fish!
Stopping Citrus Greening
Spinach defensin
NPR1
Lytic peptides
Many show promise
Earliest deregulation is 2019
Edible Cotton Seeds!
Gossypol- free
Defense compound to protect seeds
Protein rich seeds could feed 500 M people
Transgenic cotton with suppressed gossypol synthesis
Edible Cotton Seeds!
Chestnut blight has destroyed the American Chestnut.
A single gene confers resistance to the disease.
Not food… so deregulation is an interesting question.
Bacterial Wilt in Bananas
>70% of calories for some areas
GM trials in Uganda
X
X
Farmers
Consumers
Environment
Needy
X
Stopping Citrus Greening
Devastating disease in Florida, working westward
Transgenic solutions work
Breeding is too slow, few sources of natural resistance.
In Conclusion
There many good solutions that exist today that can help:
The environmentThe needyThe farmerThe consumer
We need to think about, and push for, the best solutions to our agricultural challenges, and consider all technologies along with careful assessment of risk and benefit.
