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| International-UN-NGOs |
| IAEA calls for renewed interest in mutant plant breeding |
| 2008-12-03 |
| The UN atomic watchdog called Tuesday for renewed interest and increased investment in a technique that uses radiation to improve crop yields and resistance against a backdrop of the global food and energy crises. The International Atomic Energy Agency is hoping that, given the current food crisis, countries will revive their interest in mutation induction -- a technique that has been in use since the 1920s -- to produce improved high-yielding plants that adapt to harsh climate conditions such as drought or flood, or that are resistant to certain diseases and insect pests. The technique, which the IAEA insists is "safe, proven and cost effective", uses radiation to alter genetic material in crop plants to boost output and disease resistance. Selective mutation can also help crops adapt to changing climates and conditions. "The global nature of the food crisis is unprecedented. Families all around the world are struggling to feed themselves," said IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. "To provide sustainable, long-term solutions, we must make use of all available resources. Selecting the crops that are better able to feed us is one of humankind's oldest sciences. But we've neglected to give it the support and investment it requires for universal application. The IAEA is urging a revival of nuclear crop breeding technologies to help tackle world hunger." Earlier this year, the IAEA hosted an International Symposium on Induced Mutations in Plants, which brought together some 600 plant scientists, researchers and breeders from around the world. Some 3,000 mutant varieties from 170 plant species spread over 60 countries -- including cereals, pulses, oil, root and tuber crops -- are currently cataloged in a seed database jointly run by the IAEA and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Unlike bio-engineered genetic modification, induced mutation does not splice foreign genes into the plant, but rather reorganises its existing genetic material, said the head of plant breeding and genetics at the IAEA, Pierre Lagoda. "Spontaneous mutations are the motor of evolution," he said. "If we could live millions of years and survey billions of hectares (acres) of land with 100 percent precision, we would find variants with all of the traits we're looking for but which have mutated naturally. "But we can't wait millions of years to find the plants that are necessary now, if we want to feed the world. So with induced mutation, we are actively speeding up the process." No residual radiation is left on the plant, according to Lagoda. And because the technique mimics nature, it has encountered less resistance than genetically modified organisms (GMOs), derided by Induced mutation would not solve the world's food crisis on its own, but it was "a very efficient tool, to the global agricultural community to broaden the adaptability of crops in the face of climate change, rising prices, and soils that lack fertility or have other major problems," Lagoda said. The technology was inexpensive, said the head of the FAO/IAEA Joint Division Plant Breeding Unit in Seibersdorf, Austria, Chikelu Mba. "Investment would be required in training people, in enhancing the capacity of member states to have scientists who will take up plant breeding as a profession and work on problems within their own countries," Mba said. Indeed, the return on investment was huge. Japan, for example, has invested 69 million dollars (55 million euros) in its plant breeding infrastructure over the past 40 years, but the returns were something like 62 billion dollars, Mba said. Let me guess - they want a mutant pot that drug dogs can't smell in customs.. |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #4 OK, anyone who bites on this crap & still freaks out over GMOs deserves to starve to death. It's a much more dangerous, much more uncontrolled, much more unnecessary line of investigation than the poor, much-maligned genetic engineering approach. It is shotgun-broad, uses dangerous and dirty radioactive material, is intrinsically sloppy, and allows for widespread handling of proliferatable materials. (The flattened Syrian nuke plant was pretending to be an experimental station for this sort of irradiative agricultural research.) This is the classic example of 'to someone holding a hammer, every problem looks like a nail'. Imbeciles! |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2008-12-03 13:59 |
| #3 Mutant plants ya say? Feed me Seymour, sez I. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nikolaevsk, AK 2008-12-03 12:51 |
| #2 Mutant plants? Nuclear or chickpea? |
| Posted by: James Carville 2008-12-03 10:46 |
| #1 That ought to twist a few EU knickers. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2008-12-03 09:38 |