Germplasm Conservation and the Green Revolution

1991 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-160
Author(s):  
Carl E. Brunner ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Crop Production ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Green Revolution ◽  
Germplasm Conservation ◽  
Food Crop ◽  
Crop Varieties ◽  
Adequate Food ◽  
High Yielding Varieties ◽  
The Third World ◽  
Crop Germplasm

As a result of the Green Revolution, modem agriculture in the industrialized world has developed into a monocultural system. Through intensive breeding practices, most food crops grown in the developed nations have a narrow genetic base and are increasingly susceptible to disease and environmental changes. The genetic sources of eroded genes are found in the traditional crop varieties of the Third World However, these traditional, home-grown varieties have been abandoned in favor of the high yielding varieties of the Green Revolution. Analysis of world cereal and food crop production data reveals that the world is food crop interdependent. The essay concludes that in order to assure adequate food supplies, food crop germplasm needs to be conserved.

scholarly journals Challenges and Perspectives in Homology-Directed Gene Targeting in Monocot Plants

Rice ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tien Van Vu ◽  
Yeon Woo Sung ◽  
Jihae Kim ◽  
Duong Thi Hai Doan ◽  
Mil Thi Tran ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Targeting ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
De Novo ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Green Revolution ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Site Directed Mutagenesis ◽  
Crop Varieties ◽  
Long Time

AbstractContinuing crop domestication/redomestication and modification is a key determinant of the adaptation and fulfillment of the food requirements of an exploding global population under increasingly challenging conditions such as climate change and the reduction in arable lands. Monocotyledonous crops are not only responsible for approximately 70% of total global crop production, indicating their important roles in human life, but also the first crops to be challenged with the abovementioned hurdles; hence, monocot crops should be the first to be engineered and/or de novo domesticated/redomesticated. A long time has passed since the first green revolution; the world is again facing the challenge of feeding a predicted 9.7 billion people in 2050, since the decline in world hunger was reversed in 2015. One of the major lessons learned from the first green revolution is the importance of novel and advanced trait-carrying crop varieties that are ideally adapted to new agricultural practices. New plant breeding techniques (NPBTs), such as genome editing, could help us succeed in this mission to create novel and advanced crops. Considering the importance of NPBTs in crop genetic improvement, we attempt to summarize and discuss the latest progress with major approaches, such as site-directed mutagenesis using molecular scissors, base editors and especially homology-directed gene targeting (HGT), a very challenging but potentially highly precise genome modification approach in plants. We therefore suggest potential approaches for the improvement of practical HGT, focusing on monocots, and discuss a potential approach for the regulation of genome-edited products.

scholarly journals The green revolution as a process of global circulation: plants, people and practices

2018 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 7-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Harwood ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Green Revolution ◽  
Global South ◽  
Development Aid ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Global Circulation ◽  
The North ◽  
Crop Varieties ◽  
Global North ◽  
High Yielding Varieties ◽  
The Needy

The “Green Revolution” (GR) is often portrayed as a humanitarian development programme in which crop varieties, cultivation practices and expertise were transferred essentially from global North to South. In this paper, however, I argue that this picture is seriously misleading for two reasons. First, it overlooks the significance of circulation between these regions. Several of the innovations central to the GR’s high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice, for example, originated in the global South before being taken up by northern breeders, while important practices and experts were transferred between countries within the global South. Moreover some of the approaches to increasing smallholder productivity which emerged from the 1970s can be traced to encounters between northern experts and southern farmers dating from the colonial period. In view of these patterns of circulation, the GR is more accurately depicted as a collective undertaking than as a “heroic” achievement of the North. Second, the tendency to represent the GR –and development aid more generally– as a “gift” from the benevolent North to the needy South ignores the very substantial economic gains which have accrued to northern agriculture and industry by virtue of GR research nominally intended to benefit the South.

The Agrarian Question in Contemporary Zimbabwe

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Toendepi Shonhe
Keyword(s):  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Job Creation ◽  
Food Crop ◽  
Contract Farming ◽  
Agrarian Question ◽  
Food Crop Production ◽  
The Government ◽  
Agrarian Transition ◽  
Depth Interviews

The reinvestment of rural agrarian surplus is driving capital accumulation in Zimbabwe's countryside, providing a scope to foster national (re-) industrialisation and job creation. Contrary to Bernstein's view, the Agrarian Question on capital remains unresolved in Southern Africa. Even though export finance, accessed through contract farming, provides an impetus for export cash crop production, and the government-mediated command agriculture supports food crop production, the reinvestment of proceeds from the sale of agricultural commodities is now driving capital accumulation. Drawing from empirical data, gathered through surveys and in-depth interviews from Hwedza district and Mvurwi farming area in Mazowe district in Zimbabwe, the findings of this study revealed the pre-eminence of the Agrarian Question, linked to an ongoing agrarian transition in Zimbabwe. This agrarian capital elaborates rural-urban interconnections and economic development, following two decades of de-industrialisation in Zimbabwe. 

scholarly journals Precision agriculture and geospatial techniques for sustainable disease control

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Roberts ◽  
Nicholas M. Short ◽  
James Sill ◽  
Dilip K. Lakshman ◽  
Xiaojia Hu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Disease Control ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Plant Disease ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Cropping Systems ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Agricultural Community ◽  
Plant Disease Control ◽  
Crop Germplasm

AbstractThe agricultural community is confronted with dual challenges; increasing production of nutritionally dense food and decreasing the impacts of these crop production systems on the land, water, and climate. Control of plant pathogens will figure prominently in meeting these challenges as plant diseases cause significant yield and economic losses to crops responsible for feeding a large portion of the world population. New approaches and technologies to enhance sustainability of crop production systems and, importantly, plant disease control need to be developed and adopted. By leveraging advanced geoinformatic techniques, advances in computing and sensing infrastructure (e.g., cloud-based, big data-driven applications) will aid in the monitoring and management of pesticides and biologicals, such as cover crops and beneficial microbes, to reduce the impact of plant disease control and cropping systems on the environment. This includes geospatial tools being developed to aid the farmer in managing cropping system and disease management strategies that are more sustainable but increasingly complex. Geoinformatics and cloud-based, big data-driven applications are also being enlisted to speed up crop germplasm improvement; crop germplasm that has enhanced tolerance to pathogens and abiotic stress and is in tune with different cropping systems and environmental conditions is needed. Finally, advanced geoinformatic techniques and advances in computing infrastructure allow a more collaborative framework amongst scientists, policymakers, and the agricultural community to speed the development, transfer, and adoption of these sustainable technologies.

An Old Pest, a New Solution

2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 181-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Cork ◽  
Malcolm J. Iles ◽  
Nazira Q. Kamal ◽  
J.C. Saha Choudhury ◽  
M. Mahbub Rahman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Crop Production ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Insect Pests ◽  
Cropping System ◽  
Environmentally Benign ◽  
Mass Trapping ◽  
Economic Returns ◽  
Collaborative Project ◽  
Field School ◽  
High Yielding Varieties

Bangladesh is essentially self-sufficient in rice as a result of the successful adoption of new high-yielding varieties and irrigated summer production over traditional deep-water cultivation practices. The sustainability of the cropping system depends on farmers adopting integrated pest management (IPM) practices in preference to relying solely on insecticides for pest and disease control. Yet insecticide consumption in rice is increasing, in common with other crop-production systems in Bangladesh. It is probably only the poor economic returns from rice cultivation that prevent more widespread use of pesticides. Enlightened agrochemical companies such as Syngenta Bangladesh Limited have recognized that insecticide use in rice should be discouraged, and promote IPM options through their farmer field school (FFS) programme. This paper describes the results of a collaborative project to assist Syngenta to develop and incorporate mass trapping with sex pheromones into their FFS programme as an environmentally benign method of controlling the predominant insect pests of rice, stem borers.

scholarly journals In vitro performance in cotton plants with different genetic backgrounds: the case of Gossypium hirsutum in Mexico, and its implications for germplasm conservation

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandra Hernández-Terán ◽  
Ana Wegier ◽  
Mariana Benítez ◽  
Rafael Lira ◽  
Tania Gabriela Sosa Fuentes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gossypium Hirsutum ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
Germplasm Conservation ◽  
Ex Situ ◽  
Conservation Strategies ◽  
Wild Germplasm ◽  
Wild Cotton

One of the best ex situ conservation strategies for wild germplasm is in vitro conservation of genetic banks. The success of in vitro conservation relies heavily on the micropropagation or performance of the species of interest. In the context of global change, crop production challenges and climate change, we face a reality of intensified crop production strategies, including genetic engineering, which can negatively impact biodiversity conservation. However, the possible consequences of transgene presence for the in vitro performance of populations and its implications for biodiversity conservation are poorly documented. In this study we analyzed experimental evidence of the potential effects of transgene presence on the in vitro performance of Gossypium hirsutum L. populations, representing the Mexican genetic diversity of the species, and reflect on the implications of such presence for ex situ genetic conservation of the natural variation of the species. We followed an experimental in vitro performance approach, in which we included individuals from different wild cotton populations as well as individuals from domesticated populations, in order to differentiate the effects of domestication traits dragged into the wild germplasm pool via gene flow from the effects of transgene presence. We evaluated the in vitro performance of five traits related to plant establishment (N = 300): propagation rate, leaf production rate, height increase rate, microbial growth and root development. Then we conducted statistical tests (PERMANOVA, Wilcoxon post-hoc tests, and NMDS multivariate analyses) to evaluate the differences in the in vitro performance of the studied populations. Although direct causality of the transgenes to observed phenotypes requires strict control of genotypes, the overall results suggest detrimental consequences for the in vitro culture performance of wild cotton populations in the presence of transgenes. This provides experimental, statistically sound evidence to support the implementation of transgene screening of plants to reduce time and economic costs in in vitro establishment, thus contributing to the overarching goal of germplasm conservation for future adaptation.

scholarly journals Machine Learning Speeding Up the Development of Portfolio of New Crop Varieties to Adapt to and Mitigate Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdallah Bari ◽  
Hassan Ouabbou ◽  
abderrazek Jilal ◽  
Hamid Khazaei ◽  
Fred Stoddard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
Crop Varieties ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Mitigate Climate Change ◽  
High Yielding Varieties ◽  
New Crop ◽  
Adaptation And Mitigation

Climate change poses serious challenges to achieving food security in a time of a need to produce more food to keep up with the worlds increasing demand for food. There is an urgent need to speed up the development of new high yielding varieties with traits of adaptation and mitigation to climate change. Mathematical approaches, including ML approaches, have been used to search for such traits, leading to unprecedented results as some of the traits, including heat traits that have been long sought-for, have been found within a short period of time.

scholarly journals Exploring the Major Climate-smart Agricultural Practices for Dry Season Crop Production in Salinity Affected Fallow Land in the Coastal Areas of Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
pp. 185-192
Author(s):  
Md. Abdul Awal
Keyword(s):  
Crop Production ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Conservation Agriculture ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Fallow Land ◽  
Short Life Span ◽  
Crop Varieties ◽  
Study Results

The landmasses of the coastal areas of Bangladesh still remains under-utilized, thus cropping intensity is much less than the national average. Most areas remain fallow during dry (rabi) season from December to May due to presence of higher concentration of salts in soil and water, and scarcity of suitable irrigation water. Available adaptation options or technologies are not capable to solve these problems at all. Nevertheless, the areas receive a lot of water from monsoon rain, most of that rainwater is drain-out as surface runoff. The present study results suggest that the use of harvested rainwater and conservation agriculture either in combination or alone could mitigate the problem for bringing huge areas under crop cultivation. The public social safety net programmes such as cash-for-work, food-for-work etc. can be deployed for excavating or re-excavating the abandoned coastal ponds, ditches or canals for storing rainwater. Salt-, drought- and/or heat-tolerant crop varieties with short life span can also be cultivated to get the better results. Early plantation or growing crops with early-maturing varieties can ensure safer harvest in ahead of stress arrives. The avenues have immense potential as climate-smart practices for growing crops preferably non-rice crops during dry season in vast fallow land that will not only ensure food security for coastal people but could turn the entire southern Bangladesh as a food surplus zone. The findings refer the broad recommendation, therefore, specific research works based on the locations and resources available are necessary.

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