Plants_Of_The_Future_Luca

Plant breeding for drought

Drought is defined as a period of one season, year or several years. The Horn of Africa has been affected by a severe drought in the last 12 years. A wheat harvest was reduced by up to 45% in a drought period compared to a good crop season. A drought period causes direct impacts and indirect impacts. Some examples of direct impacts are: Reduced crop, rangeland, and forest productivity , Reduced water levels, Increased fire hazard, Damage to wildlife and fish habitat, Increased livestock and wildlife mortality rates, Increased insect infestations, Increased plant disease and Increased wind erosion. These impacts will lead to the indirect impact. The farmer has less income and therefore no money to pay back loans. The prices for food are rising. Poorness and crime are rising. All this can lead to migration [1].

Due to longer and longer dry periods it is necessary to have drought tolerant plants. With the help of models of pathways and genes, biotechnology has made considerable progress in this area in recent years. There are different approaches to protect a plant against drought. For example to grow a larger root system to extract more humidity from the soil. Or changing the mechanisms of the plants to better tolerate drought. For example, osmotic adaptation and production of antioxidants. These and other approaches are used to make plants better adapted to drought. Through these adaptations they are able to produce more yield in these difficult environmental conditions [2].

Maize is an important source of food in sub-saharan africa (SSA). The average temperature in Africa has risen by 2 degrees Celsius in the 21st century. As a result, 40% of the maize growing area suffers from extreme drought. Due to the drought in SSA, farmers lost up to 25% of their yield. The DTMA project (Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa) was set up to ensure food security. Various drought-tolerant maize varieties were tested in 13 African countries. These were tested on experimental- and farmland. The yields of the new varieties are higher than those of currently available commercial maize varieties, under both stress and optimal growing conditions [3].

In the future, agriculture will face some problems. It is estimated that around 9.7 billion people will be living in the year 2050. In order to provide all these people with sufficient food, the food supply would have to almost double. Climate change will make this very difficult to achieve. Some areas that are now important for agriculture will no longer exist due to climate change. For example, rising sea levels, drought and flooding. But there will be other areas that are know not so good for agriculture but will be in the future [4].

Plant breeding can meet this challenge. Through breeding, more yield can be obtained on the same area. Another advantage is that you can also achieve good yields in dry regions. For the future it is very important to use plant breeding to produce enough food for the world population.

 Sources

[1] FAO Land & Water. (2013). Drought. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

[2] JillDeikman, MariePetracek, Jacqueline E Heard (2012, April). Drought tolerance through biotechnology: improving translation from the laboratory to farmers’ fields. Current Opinion in Biotechnology, pp .243-250

[3] Monica Fisher, Tsedeke Abate, Rodney W. Lunduka, Woinishet Asnake, Yoseph Alemayehu & Ruth B. Madulu (2015, July). Drought tolerant maize for farmer adaptation to drought in sub-Saharan Africa: Determinants of adoption in eastern and southern Africa. Climatic Change, pp. 283-299

[4] Mitchell C. Hunter, Richard G. Smith, Meagan E. Schipanski, Lesley W. Atwood, David A. 

Mortensen (2017, April). Agriculture in 2050: Recalibrating Targets for Sustainable Intensification.  BioSciene Volume 67, pp. 386-391