New Genetics, Food & Agriculture: Scientific Discoveries - Societal Dilemmas

Table 1.4. Illustrative applications of biotechnology to the goal of poverty reduction.

 Biotechnology applications (1-6)

Poverty reduction objective	Constraint	Target	1 Microbial fermentation/ bio-control/ bio-fertilizers	2 New diagnostics/ vaccines	3 Tissue culture/ micro- propagation	4 Molecular markers and MAS	5 Genetic engineering/ transgenics	6 Functional genomics	Specific  global  examples
Increasing rural incomes	Lack of clean seed / planting material	Vegetative crops and trees	Bio-pesticides	Plant disease diagnostics	Cardamom Potato Banana				India Vietnam Kenya
Sustainable production in resource poor areas	Drought Pests Acid soils	Cereals Maize Al. tolerance				Maize Insect resistance Al. tolerance		Drought  tolerance in cereals	AMBIONET/  CIMMYT
More nutritious food for poor	Vitamins   Micro-nutrients	Rice   Rice				iron	Vitamin A rice		IRRI India China

Notes:

1.        Traditional biotechnology applications such as microbial and food fermentation.

2.     New diagnostics and vaccines based on molecular applications.

3.        New methods for tissue culture and micropropagation of planting material.

4.        Use of molecular markers in marker-assisted selection (MAS) in conventional plant and animal breeding.

5.        Genetic engineering to produce transgenic plant/and/or animal strains, containing new specific gene(s) controlling a particular trait.

6.        Genomics: understanding the physical structure of the genome, and in functional genomics, the function of specific genes.

AMBIONET – Asian Maize Biotechnology Network. CIMMYT – International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, IRRI – International Rice Research Institute

Source: Persley, G.J. 2001. Agricultural Biotechnology: Global Challenges and Emerging Science.  In: Persley, G.J., and MacIntyre, L.R. (eds.)  Agricultural Biotechnology: Country Case Studies—A Decade of Development.  CAB Publishing, Wallingford, U.K.

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