Genetic Engineering Helps Water Conservation
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Technology
Experts SayMolecularGenetic Engineering TechnologyEnables Plant Breeders to Preserve Water and Helps Drought Impact Reducement
The United Nations has called drought the"world's costliest natural disaster,"both financially, imposing an annual cost of $6-8 billion, and in human terms; since 1900, it has affected two billion people, leading to more than 11 million deaths. That is because so much of the world is vulnerable; currently affected areas include Australia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, North and South America and the Middle East.
Given that agriculture accounts for70% of water consumption, on average, worldwide, it seems logical that this sector should be the focus of conservation measures. And, in fact, a proven technology exists that could go a long way toward reducing the impact of drought: genetic engineering (GE).
Sometimes called "genetic modification," GE enables plant breeders to make existing crop plants do new things - such as conserve water. Even with research and development hampered by resistance from activists and excessive government regulation, drought-resistant GE crop varieties are emerging from the development pipeline in many parts of the world.
Over the last two decades,such crop varieties have been cultivatedon more than 1.5 billion hectares by more than 17 million farmers in some 30 countries - without disrupting a single ecosystem or causing so much as a stomachache. Worldwide, these new varieties have provided "very significant net economic benefits at the farm level, amounting to $18.8 billion in 2012 and $116.6 billion" from 1996 to 2012, according to arecent reportby Landes Bioscience.
Most of these new crop varieties are designed to resist herbicides, so that farmers can adopt more environmentally friendly, no-till cultivation practices, and many have also been engineered to resist pests and diseases that ravage crops.
Other types of GE crop varieties, such as those that are disease- and pest-resistant, indirectly improve the efficiency of water use. Because much of the loss to diseases and pests occurs after the plants are fully grown - that is, after most of the water required for their growth has already been supplied - resistance to them means more agricultural output per unit of water invested. In short, farmers can get more crop for the drop.
Molecular genetic engineering technology can conserve water in other ways as well. One-third of irrigated land worldwide is not suitable for growing crops because of the presence of salt - the result of repeated fertilization. To regain the more than 200,000 hectares of irrigated land that is lost to cultivation annually, scientists have enhanced the salt tolerance of crops as diverse as tomatoes and canola. The transformed plants can grow in salty soil and be irrigated with brackish water, conserving fresh water for other uses.
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