FAO Forum Conf 14 (Water)

[For further information on the Electronic Forum on Biotechnology in Food and Agriculture see the Forum website.
Note, participants are assumed to be speaking on their own behalf, unless they state otherwise.]

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 22 March 2007 08:48
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: 44: Resurrection plants and water scarcity

I am Dr Richard Mundembe, lecturer (Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology) at the Bindura University of Science Education in Zimbabwe. I have interests in plant molecular biology.

I am greatly encouraged by Dr B. Venkateswarlu‘s message (42) on transgenic plants and drought tolerance. I have had an interest in resurrection plants for some time even though I do not have an active research programme in that area at this point in time. Resurrection plants have the ability to tolerate near-total water loss in their vegetative tissues, and revive to full physiological activity on re-hydration. Resurrection plants are represented in most classes of plants. I believe that if we could develop crops with some of the traits of this group of plants, we would be able to reduce crop loss due to water deficiency, and subsequent hunger. Zimbabwe’s rainy season stretches from late November to March, with some dry spells in between. The dry spell in January, if prolonged, results in total failure of the rain-fed crop. Resource poor farmers helplessly watch their whole crop wilt and die! If we could convey the ability to resurrect to some of these crops, the farmer would harvest something to live on for part of the year, and maybe a little bit of seed for the subsequent season.

Is the dream for such a crop worth pursuing? I wish to get in touch with fellow researchers with similar interest and make a contribution towards such a goal, despite all the complexities.

Richard Mundembe
Department of Biological Sciences
Bindura University of Science Education
P.Bag 1020
Bindura,
Zimbabwe
rmundembe (at) buse.ac.zw, rmunde01 (at) yahoo.com
Phone: 263-91-2422861

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 22 March 2007 11:50
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: 45: Marker assisted selection for yield under water stress

I am Eugene Agbicodo, a PhD Research Fellow University of Wageningen presently at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria. I appreciate indeed the initiative of FAO in organizing such a conference. I would like to contribute to the theme of marker assisted selection (MAS) for yield under water stress. I agreed with all other participants on the importance of MAS for yield under drought conditions. Particularly, I appreciate the development of P.K. Gupta (Messages 14 and 25) and P. Sathish Kumar (Messages 18 and 23).

In my intervention, I would like to focus on two main problems:

The first is the phenotyping method. Drought resistance as a highly quantitative trait, the bottleneck here is to select a trait that must be possible to measure with reasonable accuracy to first establish the linkage with specific molecular markers. Researchers on water stress have proposed two approaches for screening and breeding for drought resistance. The first is the empirical or performance approach which utilizes grain yield and its component as the main criteria, since yield is the integrated expression of the entire array of traits related to productivity under stress. The second is the analytical or physiological approach which identifies a specific physiological or morphological trait that will contribute significantly to the growth and yield in the event of drought. However, these two approaches should be seen as complementary. Nowadays, there are number of papers showing quantitative trait loci (QTLs) relating to morphological/physiological traits with effect on drought resistance in rice, barley and grain sorghum, etc.

The second is the type of molecular marker to be used for genotyping: The traits can then be genetically dissected using linkage maps that are based on molecular markers. Numbers of molecular markers (Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphisms (AFLPs), simple sequence repeats (SSRs), single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), etc.) are now available for tagging and mapping genes/QTLs related to yield under water stress conditions. In order to enhance the discovery of genes/QTLs and identify functional markers that would be more efficient for MAS under drought stress, in addition to the general molecular marker techniques, a molecular marker technique targeting protein kinases (PK profiling), transcription factor genes family in the APETALA2 (AP2) domain, enzymes in proline, abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthesis, etc can be used. These profilings will produce markers in the domain of a specific gene families which may increase the chance of finding markers related to drought stress tolerance. Another advantage of this profiling techniques is that it can help for comparative genomic studies.

Eugene Agbicodo
IITA
Ibadan,
Nigeria
E.AGBICODO (at) CGIAR.ORG

[A recent review containing information on the gene families mentioned in the last paragraph is by Valliyodan, B. and Nguyen, H.T. 2006. Understanding regulatory networks and engineering for enhanced drought tolerance in plants. Current Opinion in Plant Biology, 9:1–7 http://www.plantstress.com/Articles/up_drought_files/Nguyen_Engineering%20for%20drought.pdf ...Moderator].

-----Original Message-----
From: Biotech-Mod2
Sent: 22 March 2007 14:16
To: 'biotech-room2@mailserv.fao.org'
Subject: 46: What are biotechnologies and how will they solve water scarcity

I am Sarbeswara Sahoo, associated with an NGO known as Kalpataru located at Kishorenagar Block of Angul District Orissa, India. We are working for the management of indigenous water resources in our region. We are specifically looking after the indigenous water bodies that you will find in every villages may be more than one. But these resources once managed by the village community themselves before 1947, are now in a very ruinous condition. As the water crisis is increasing year by year where people are travelling to far off places to take bath during the summer. Human beings somehow manage this water crisis, but the livestock and other animals suffer the most as they can't use man-made devices like tube well and dug well for drinking and bathing purposes. Degradation of these traditional resources has far-reaching implications for the wild animals who die in search of water. Water crisis in rural Orissa is acute and anyone who stays in the rural areas can understand the water woes

Today, I had the opportunity to attend the World Water Day observed by UNESCO Delhi and a number of international and national organisations, including India head of FAO, were present and there I come to know that this year FAO has been given the chairmanship of looking at the scarcity of water and I therefore congratulate you to have this e-conference on coping with water scarcity and the role of Biotechnology. In this regard, I want to raise some fundamental questions to all the members of this conference;

1. Besides a few participants I hope, a large scale of the targetted group that are in the developing country don't understand what biotechnologies are and what their role is. I myself do not know much about this. Given this ignorance, how to spread this message.

2. How can biotechnology be made popular among the farmers in developing countries where they are still guided by traditional customs and norms? Without addressing this fundamental issue, if some external agency intervenes with the biotechnologies in a country like India and imposes them, then the successfulness is questionable. I therefore request you all to suggest.

Sarbeswara Sahoo
Indian Institute of Dalit Studies
D/25/D-South Extension,Ph-II,
New Delhi-110049
India
09213721490
E-mail:mitusarbe (at) gmail.com
www.dalitstudies.org.in

[Firstly, the point raised by Sarbeswara at the end supports that of Gian Nicolay (Message 41) who argued that the focus should be on the practicability of any solution envisaged and designed. "Research and development (R&D) working on solutions which will never be accepted by the relevant society would add hardly any value. Breeders not cooperating with biotechnologists and GMO specialists will lead to missed opportunities. Farmers, consumers and local politicians not being involved in the design of the solution might refuse its application (see more in Conference 12 and 8). The bottom-line should be the delivery of sustainable and widely accepted services, products and approaches, always in their concrete context".

Secondly, as mentioned by Sarbeswara, 22 March is World Water Day and indeed, as you probably know, this e-mail conference was organised by FAO to coincide with World Water Day. International observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. This year the World Water Day theme is "Coping with water scarcity', a theme that was decided among all members of UN Water at the World Water Week in Stockholm in August 2006. UN Water is made up of the UN agencies, programmes and funds that have a significant role in tackling global water concerns. It also includes major non-UN partners who cooperate with them in advancing progress towards the water-related goals of the Decade Water for Life and Millennium Declaration. FAO acts as coordinator, on behalf of all the UN Agencies and Programmes members of UN-Water for the celebration of World Water Day 2007. At the World Water Day celebration ceremony held this morning at FAO Headquarters, the opening address by the FAO Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf was dedicated to 'Coping with water scarcity'. The corresponding FAO press release is reproduced below and is available at http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2007/1000520/index.html (in Arabic, English, French, Italian and Spanish)...Moderator]

FAO urges action to cope with increasing water scarcity: Improving agricultural practices key

Rome, 22 March 2007 -- As the number-one user of water worldwide, the agriculture sector must be in the lead in addressing the rising global demand for water and its potential drain on the earth’s natural resources, FAO said today on the occasion of World Water Day.

Agriculture accounts for about 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawn from lakes, waterways and aquifers around the world. The figure is closer to 95 percent in several developing countries, where roughly three-quarters of the world’s irrigated farmlands are located.

However, food is water. It takes 1 000 to 2 000 litres of water to produce one kilogram of wheat and 13 000 to 15 000 litres to produce the same quantity of grain-fed beef. Without water, we cannot produce; and without, it we simply cannot eat.

FAO is the coordinating agency within the UN system for World Water Day 2007. This year’s theme, "Coping with Water Scarcity", highlights the need for increased cooperation at international and local levels to protect global water resources.

Challenge of the century

Speaking at the World Water Day celebration at FAO Headquarters in Rome, FAO Director-General Dr Jacques Diouf called coping with water scarcity the "challenge of the 21st century".

The bulk of that challenge lies in finding more effective ways to conserve, use and protect the world’s water resources. Global population is expected to reach 8.1 billion by 2030. To keep pace with the growing demand for food, 14 percent more freshwater will need to be withdrawn for agricultural purposes in the next 30 years.

"As population grows and development needs call for increased allocations of water for cities, agriculture and industries, the pressure on water resources intensifies, leading to tensions, conflicts among users, and excessive strain on the environment," said Dr Diouf.

Climate change has raised the stakes. Global warming has been blamed for more frequent droughts. Climate change has also intensified storms and flooding, which destroy crops, contaminate freshwater and damage the facilities used to store and carry that water.

Smallholder farmers, who make up the majority of the world’s rural poor, often occupy marginal lands and rely on rainfall to sustain their livelihoods, making them particularly vulnerable to climate variability.

Opportunities

Still, according to FAO, opportunities exist to improve the ability of poor people to lift themselves out of poverty under conditions of greater water security and sustainability.

"With the right incentives and investments to mitigate risks for individual farmers, improving water control in agriculture holds considerable potential to increase food production and reduce poverty, while ensuring the maintaining of ecosystem services," said Dr Diouf.

While most agriculture is rainfed, irrigation has made an unquestionable difference in easing hunger and improving livelihoods - accounting for only 20 percent of total cropland but for 40 percent of all food produced.

Interventions need to be tailored to local, national and regional conditions, according to FAO. Effective pilot projects and programmes in countries as diverse as Tanzania, Bolivia and Sri Lanka have included small-scale irrigation schemes or community-based systems for harvesting rainfall and protecting catchments that feed into main waterways.

But better agricultural practices can also lead to substantial increases in productivity in large-scale irrigation schemes, releasing pressure on water resources. At the same time, FAO advocates support for interregional and river-basin programmes that coordinate the responses of several governments or agencies, as in the countries that share the Nile River and Lake Chad basins in Africa, both of which have been compromised by drought and human activity.

"The potential exists to provide an adequate and sustainable supply of quality water for all, today and in the future," said Dr Diouf. "But there is no room for complacency. It is our common responsibility to take the challenge of today’s global water crisis and address it in all of its aspects and dimensions."

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