Biotech crops seen helping to feed hungry world
It looks like efforts to create drought-tolerant crops are beginning to ramp up. According to the following Reuters article biotech industry leaders, including DuPont, Syngenta and Bayer Crop Science, were in San Diego last week at the BIO International Conference discussing the development of new disease-resistant and drought-tolerant crops. Read more about it below.
C.S. Prakash
Biotech crops seen helping to feed hungry world
Reuters
June 19, 2008
SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Biotechnology in agricultural will be key to feeding a growing world population and overcoming climate challenges like crop-killing droughts, according to a group of leading industry players.
"It is critical we keep moving forward," said Thomas West, a director of biotechnology affairs at DuPont, interviewed on the sidelines of a biotechnology conference in San Diego. "We have to yield and produce our way out of this."
DuPont believes it can increase corn and soybean yields by 40 percent over the next decade. Corn seeds that now average about 150 bushels per acre could be at well over 200 bushels an acre, for example, DuPont officials said.
Crop shortages this year have sparked riots in some countries and steep price hikes in markets around the globe, and questions about how to address those issues were the subject of several meetings at the BIO International Convention being held this week.
Despite persistent reluctance in many nations and from some consumer and environmental groups, genetically modified crops, -- and the fortunes of the companies that make them -- have been on the rise. Growing food and biofuel demands have been helping push growth.
