Needs and opportunities to future-proof crops and the use of crop systems to mitigate atmospheric change

This article by Stephen P. Long, Ikenberry Endowed University Chair of Crop Sciences and Plant Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign eloquently makes “our” case for the need for transformative change.  For the last twenty years, global CO2 emissions have been tracking the climate model that predicts an additional 1.2 degrees C by 2050-2060. This will be a serious impediment to crop production that it appears will fall short of meeting future needs. Long cites some recent successes with plant breeding and observes that

“…many more such examples will be needed if we are to avert famines on a scale not seen for decades. Achieving this requires the training of more plant breeders in both national and international programmes and access to relevant high-throughput phenotyping and genotyping facilities, especially in the countries that will continue to be most affected by food shortages. It also requires much swifterand more efficient deregulation of key biotechnologies.”

Click here to read the full article.