Food Security in the Twenty-First Century 1 The Challenge: Improving Agriculture in Developing Countries 2 Agricultural Biotechnology 2 Approaches in Biotechnology to Improve Farming 3 Resistance to Abiotic Stresses 3 Resistance to Biotic Stresses 4 Approaches in Biotechnology to Improve Health 4 Examples of Biofortified Crops 4 Biofortified Rice 4 Biofortified Maize and Cassava 5 Additional He...

Agricultural trade between nations is a significant proportion of total international trade. Agricultural trade in transgenic crops faces extra complications due to the existence of domestic and international regimes that focus specifically on agricultural biotechnology. These specialized regimes create legal and commercial challenges for trade in transgenic crops that have significant implicat...

World food trade patterns have changed in the last 40 years with the share of world trade comprised of bulk commodities falling, and the share of world food trade comprised of processed commodities rising. These changes have been driven by a combination of supply and demand forces. On the demand side, world demand for livestock products and more highly processed food products has been rising mo...

Global food security is threatened by crop diseases that account for average yield losses of 16%. Climate change is exacerbating threats to food security in much of the world, emphasising the need to increase food production in northern European countries such as the UK. However, to mitigate climate change, crops must be grown so as to minimise greenhouse gas emissions (GHG); results with UK oi...

The rapidly growing world population and rising consumption of biofuels are increasing demand for both food and biofuels. This exaggerates both food and fuel shortages. Using food crops such as corn grain to produce ethanol raises major nutritional and ethical concerns. Nearly 60% of humans in the world are currently malnourished, so the need for grains and other basic foods is critical. Growin...

Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) eggplant may become the first transgenic vegetable crop to be commercialized in the Indian subcontinent. This exploratory study conducted in Maharashtra, India suggests that vegetable farmers are generally receptive to the technology primarily for its pest resistance and cost saving attributes. While economic issues dominate the farmers’ perception of Bt eggplant, et...

Future food security in Sub-Saharan Africa requires enhancement of its crop production. Transgenic crops with a poverty focus can enhance harvests and are available for staples such as cooking bananas and plantains. One constraint is optimisation of national biosafety processes to support rapid and safe uptake of such beneficial crops. Africa needs streamlined regulation supporting deployment o...

Forget about farm-to-fork when it comes to genetically modified (GM) crops. Think farm-to-pharmacy, or farmto-factory. Produced through plant molecular farming (PMF), this new set of transgenic crops is being grown not for food, but to produce medicines and industrial products. For example, potatoes have been modified to produce a vaccine against the Norwalk virus, research that is currently in...