cultivos genéticamente modificados
DESCRIPTION
Presentación hecha por el profesro Marc Van Montagu, referida a la importancia de los GM-Croaps (Cultivos Geneticamente Modificados), en el marco del lanzamiento del nuevo Centro de Ciencia e Innovación en Biotecnología Vegetal ceCIBUC, de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.TRANSCRIPT
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Santiago - May 28th 2009Centro de Ciencia e Innovacion en Biotecnologia Vegetal UC
ceCIBUC
Institute of Plant BiotechnologyFor Developing Countries
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Prof. Em. Marc Van MontaguChairman, IPBO
Websites: http://www.ipbo.ugent.behttp://www.psb.ugent.behttp://www.efb-central.orghttp://www.pubresreg.org
E-mail : [email protected]
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
How can Science & Technology help to overcome the global challenges of humanity?
• The ever increasing environmental damage due to the ongoing population growth and the need for more social justice;
• 1 billion people undernourished;• 3 billion people living on less than 2€ a day.
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
“World agriculture has entered a new, unsustainable, and politically risky period. Agriculture - and the natural resources it depends on - has been overexploited ecologically, has suffered from underinvestment, has recently been exposed to ill-designed bioenergy programs, and has been politically sidelined for too long. It is now at a critical point.”
Joachim Von Braun, DG IFPRI, 2008
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Developing country scientific institutions and international organisations that pioneered the Green Revolution such as the centres of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) must play a critical role in the design and execution of these programs.
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
The Green Revolution
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
• The Green Revolution demonstrated the power of Plant Breeding;
• Tripling World Population created the need for intensive agriculture;
• The extensive use of irrigation, soil fertilization and chemical pest control brought many sustainability problems.
Green Revolution: Promises and Constraints
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
• Increased destruction of tropical rainforest for doubling of the soybean acrage;
• Doubling of the traditional agriculture (corn, wheat, rice).
Environmental damage if Europe does not accept GM-crops:
Soy field with Brazil Nut tree, Amazon
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Intensive Agriculture Under Pressure• Agronomic techniques, drip
irrigation, less polluting agrochemicals were a partial answer
• Intensive breeding and high quality seed companies brought also important yield increase
• But it remained difficult to limit the need for even more arable acreage
• The use of plants for industrial production (rubber, oil palm ) brought a major destruction of tropical forest
Oil palm plantation, Malaysia
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Contributions of GM-cropsTackle food security issues & environmental constraints on productivity.
Reduce the environmental footprint of industry.
Plants for fuels and the chemical industry.
Biotechnology as a coherent answer to these challenges.
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
The Millenium Development Goals• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger• Achieve universal primary education• Promote gender equality & empower women• Reduce child mortality• Improve maternal health• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diesases• Ensure environmental sustainability• Develop a global partnership for development
www.UN.org
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Challenge
We need GM agriculture to:Increase agricultural productivityProvide income for the rural poorNot extend the amount of arable land used
We need substantial investment in international agriculture
We need to assure that emerging and developing countries can create SMEs and a seed industry to bring GM crops to the market.
In 2015 the Millennium Goals will not be met if we stay with business as usual.
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
High Petroleum prices bring major damage to our economy• Increase biomass production for the
chemical industry;• Obtain an affordable energy supply;• Build a less polluting manufacturing
industry.
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Agriculture
Fibres
Organic Acids
Polyols
Polyurethanes Polyester Nylon
Polymers
Monomers
Biorefining
Feed Additives
BioFuels
Green Solvents(ethyl lactate)
Specialty Chemicals
HighPerformance
Materials
PharmaceuticalPrecursors
AminoAcids
Lignin
Ethanol
Source: Bio 2005
The Biorefinery platform using agricultural feedstocks
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
The emerging bio-economy is built on green and white biotechnology
Green biotechnology White biotechnology
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
1930
Plants30%
Coal60%
Petroleum10%
1960
Plants1% Coal
20%
Petroleum79%
Plant-based feedstocks in industry are not new
Source: UNIDO
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
…but production capacity of bio-chemicals is still rather low
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Other applications are emerging
1930s: soy-based car components (Ford)
21st Century: kenaf-based car components
21st Century: soy-based car components (Ford-Dupont)
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Necessities: Invest in non-food crop improvement – gene silencing approaches
Jatropha curcas Ricinus communis
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Explore the potential of non-food crops
Miscanthus Sweet sorghum Castor bean
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Short rotation plantations for fuel and fibre• Wood producing plants e.g. poplar• CO2 captation in cell walls
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
- arid land regeneration- Asian longhorn beetle resistance
Insect resistant poplars in China
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Mountain pine beetle – could Bt be the cure for this environmental disaster?
270 mega tonnes of carbon emission by 2020
British Columbia 2008
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Metabolic engineering
Rischer et al., PNAS (2006)
• Catharanthus roseusproduces vinblastine & vinchristine
• Use: Hodgkin's disease, acute leukemia, breast cancer
• Content in plants: In leaves ~ 0.0003 % (500 kg plant material is needed to obtain 1 g vincristine)
• Price: ~13 000 € / g
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Rice – weekly prices, Bangkok
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
2005 2006 2007 2008
Ø Price 05: 290,7
Ø Price 06: 311,4
Ø Price 07: 333,8
Ø Price 08: 736,2
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
USD/mt
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Environmental degradation is a global problem
Source: Diaz & Rosenberg (2008), Science; 321: 926-929
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
25 thousand years of genetically modified plants
• Selection• Crossing• Genomic Fusion• Mutagenesis• Cloning
The fertile crescent
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Scientists cannot prove that GM-crops are safe, they can
only prove that perceived dangers are non-existent.
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
‘Appropriate GM’ is entirely within our grasp
www.spec.bc.ca/project/ project.php?projectID=23
Why then, are such life-saving technologies not reaching the farmers who desperately need them? Perhaps more importantly we should ask how many lives have been lost because of the delays?
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Priorities for the Pro-Poor GM Crop Increased finance for programs in the public sector targeted
towards the enhancement of yield, disease resistance, nutritional quality and drought tolerance;
International co-operations must be financed in such a way that the knowledge derived from these activities can be transferred to developing country scientists for the accomplishment of locally relevant crop improvement programs;
Mechanisms to empower developing country scientists, and enable them to participate in - and contribute to - the global knowledge-based bio-economy that is emerging.
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
Regulatory compliance and biosafety regulations must be brought into line with appropriate scientific evidence, regarding risk and benefit, and reduce the costs of these procedures
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
21st Century Plants will be GM-Plants
The Importance of GM Crops for Society, Industry and Environment.
Santiago – May 28th 2009
In a better Environment