New plant breeding technologies for food security
Improved crops can contribute to a world without hunger, if properly managed
Abstract
A world without hunger is possible but only if food production is sustainably increased and distributed and extreme poverty is eliminated. Globally, most of the poor and undernourished people live in rural areas of developing countries, where they depend on agriculture as a source of food, income, and employment. International data show a clear association between low agricultural productivity and high rates of undernourishment (1). Global studies have also shown that rapid reduction of extreme poverty is only possible when the incomes of smallholder farmers are increased (2). Therefore, sustained improvement in agricultural productivity is central to socioeconomic development. Here, we argue that with careful deployment and scientifically informed regulation, new plant breeding technologies (NPBTs) such as genome editing will be able to contribute substantially to global food security.
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References and Notes
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Published In
Science
Volume 363 | Issue 6434
29 March 2019
29 March 2019
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Copyright © 2019, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
This is an article distributed under the terms of the Science Journals Default License.
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Published in print: 29 March 2019
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge financial support from the Belgian FNRS (S.S.Z.; grants M.i.S. F.4515.17 and V4 /705 to H.V.), LEAP-Agri Grant 288 (to H.V.), and KAUST (M.M.M. and M.T.).
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- Syed Shan-e-Ali Zaidi et al.
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