Title: GM crops, organic agriculture and breeding for sustainability

Abstract: The ongoing debate about the use of genetically-modified (GM) crops in agriculture has largely focused on food safety and genetic contamination issues. Given that the majority of GM crops have been produced to respond to the problem of crop yield reductions caused by diseases, insects and weeds, the paper argues that in those cases, the currently used GM crops are an unstable solution to the problem, because they represent such a strong selection pressure, that pests rapidly evolve resistance. Organic agriculture practices provide a more sustainable way of producing healthy food; however, the lower yields often associated with those practices, making the resultant healthy food more expensive, open the criticism that such practices will not be able to feed human populations. Evolutionary plant breeding offers the possibility of using the evolutionary potential of crops to our advantage by producing a continuous flow of varieties better adapted to organic systems, to climate change and to the ever changing spectrum of pests, without depending on chemical control. [Salvatore Ceccarelli (2014). GM crops, organic agriculture and breeding for sustainability. Sustainability, 6(7), 4273-4286] Comment

Keywords: genetic engineering; organic agriculture; evolutionary plant breeding; sustainability

Full-text available here




Article: WeedsNews5058 (permalink)
Categories: :WeedsNews:research alert, :WeedsNews:organic farming, :WeedsNews:non-chemical control, :WeedsNews:GMO
Date: 27 July 2014; 9:50:31 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time

Author Name: David Low
Author ID: adminDavid