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Five to choose from.
By Carol Reynolds
The Problem:
There are 1.02 billion undernourished people in the world today. That means one in nearly six people do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life. In addition to the obvious hunger resulting from an empty stomach, there is also the hidden hunger of micronutrient deficiencies which make people susceptible to infectious diseases, impair physical and mental development, reduce their labour productivity and increase the risk of premature death.1
The Solution:
Can agricultural biotechnology and genomics research tools help solve the world hunger crisis? Through plant breeding techniques and genomics tools, new, more nutritious crop varieties are being developed, allowing for the cultivation of crops across different regions in various soil conditions. New crop varieties also have the potential to mitigate losses brought on by disease and climate change effects.
The past decade has brought a surge of plant genomics and agricultural biotechnology research activity in Canada. Genome Canada, Genome Prairie, Genome Alberta and other organizations have provided leadership and support in these crop research areas.
From adding value to existing crops, to designing new ones and increasing tolerance for others, researchers across Canada have collaborated with global scientists to put Canada on the map as a leader in this globally important area.
Climate Change Challenges – Hot and Cold
For countries with limited arable land, maximizing production is even more important. Genomics research involving crops grown in these areas can lead to increased yields, frost and drought tolerance and improved nutritional profiles. For example, early frost on the Canadian Prairies can mean the difference between a healthy profit and a staggering loss for farmers. In Saskatchewan alone, frost damage to the 2003-04 crop amounted to an estimated half a billion dollars. 3
The rapidly expanding area of functional genomics offers significant opportunities for the understanding and manipulation of complex genetic systems, ultimately resulting in improved low-temperature tolerance of crop cultivars.
Projects such as Genome Prairie’s Crop Adaptation Genomics (CAG) project led by Dr. Brian Fowler, Crop Development Centre, University of Saskatchewan, have made advances in frost and drought tolerance in cereal crops. Enhanced cold tolerance could save millions of dollars in crop losses for farmers in a certain climate zones, lessening reliance on agriculture insurance programs.
Planting cold-tolerant wheat varieties has significant societal benefits, as these crops can be planted earlier, resulting in better weed control, reduced herbicide costs and increased production through crop rotation. Luckily some of the same genes responsible for frost tolerance are the same ones related to drought tolerance, so the CAG project research stands to benefit crops in both extremes. www.cropadaptationgenomics.ca
New and Improved
Agriculture and food processing is the third largest industrial sector in Canada and generates more than $100 billion in annual economic activity. Diversification of crops providing more environmentally friendly renewable products for producers will impact the bottom line and boost Canada’s agriculture economy.
The Designing Oilseeds for Tomorrow’s Markets (DOTM) project is another example of how genomics research is working to add value and to existing crops. This project aims to develop new uses for canola seed meal as livestock feed and ultimately human food application. DOTM is co-led by Drs. Randall Weselake from the University of Alberta, and Gopalan Selvaraj from the NRC-PBI in Saskatoon, SK.
By enhancing the quality of canola meal and increasing the oil content in the seed, farmers will soon realize the added value of new canola varieties. This project, led by Genome Alberta, focuses on seed meal quality of Brassica napus and will examine the modification of seed traits to enhance crop value and develop novel/improved food and feed products.
Farmers will see the results at the farm gate, with more nutritious, heart-healthy oils available for consumer sale, proactively increasing the security of our food supply. www.dotm.ca
Health Assurance
In British Columbia, healthcare costs are rising by an estimated eight per cent annually, compared to revenue increases of only three percent per year. Under current policies and revenue projections, healthcare costs in the province may reach over 70 per cent of total expenditures by 2017-18.4
Investing in research to promote healthier crops will provide more nutritious food for our population and thus be proactive in disease prevention and health. For example, the Canadian Centre for Agri-Food Research in Health and Medicine (CCARM) in Winnipeg, MB is dedicated to understanding the health related benefits of nutraceuticals and functional foods through research experiments and clinical trials. With its partners: the University of Manitoba and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, CCARM is providing reliable, scientific, evidence-based information for consumers about these emerging agriculturally-based functional foods. The Richardson Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals, also located in Manitoba, is dedicated to the discussion, discovery, and development of functional foods and nutraceuticals, with a focus on the crops of the Canadian Prairies.
Clean Energy
With increasing concerns over world dependence on depleting oil resources, researchers leading the Microbial Genomics for Biofuels and Co-products from Biorefining Processes (MGCB2) project are looking for ways to develop alternate renewable and sustainable energy systems. One leading alternative fuel source is biological production, wherein fuels such as ethanol are produced from cellulosic feed stocks. University of Manitoba researchers Richard Sparling, microbiology, and David Levin, biosystems engineering, are co-leaders in a $10.4 million international collaboration looking for new ways to convert waste materials (including hemp hurds, flax shives, and woodchips) into fuels (biofuels) and other products.
The mission of the proposed research is to establish Canada as an international leader in the production of biofuels and bioplastics. Sparling and Levin have assembled a multidisciplinary research team with the combined expertise to accomplish this goal, involving professionals in biotechnology, microbiology, biochemistry, genomics, bioinformatics, proteomics, engineering and political science. While this research will stimulate the development of made-in-Canada biofuels and co-product technologies, it will also consider the ethical, environmental, legal and economic issues that impact biorefinery processes and market opportunities. www.microbialrefinery.com
Value-Added for Producers
Diversification of new crops providing more environmentally friendly renewable products for farmers will impact the bottom line and boost Canada’s agriculture economy.
The Total Utilization Flax Genomics (TUFGEN) project aims at providing genetic knowledge for the improvement of seed and fibre traits of oilseed flax (Linum usitatissimum L.). This knowledge will be developed through sound genetic and genomic based experiments, co-led by Drs. Gordon Rowland from the University of Saskatchewan and Sylvie Cloutier from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Winnipeg, MB.
Genomics resources will be greatly expanded with the goal of positioning flax amongst all other important crops with significant resources. They will be utilized in research applications aiming at the improvement of seed composition including lignan bioavailability, reduction of cyanogenic glucosides, mucilage, phenolics, cyclic peptides, protein content, fatty acid composition and oil assembly. Fibre characteristics of oilseed flax will also be studied toward the improvement of fibre yield, extractability and quality. www.tufgen.ca
New crops such as camelina will also allow the utilization of marginal land and are low input as related to more traditional oil seeds. This new variety development enables agriculture as part of the climate change solution and develops markets for new products derived for oil seeds produced in western Canada.
Genomics in Canada
The population explosion stats indicate that we will have nine billion mouths to feed globally by 2050.5 The good news is that we have one generation to change how we grow our food. Translated into research years, that means we have three to four cycles (each project takes approximately 10 years to go from bench to shelf) to be proactive and change our ways. However, science alone cannot solve this increasing crisis. Regulatory, political, economic and societal acceptance are keys to enabling crop science and technology to a standard where they can have the most positive impact on Canadians and globally.
At the national regional levels, Genome Canada and Genome Prairie’s research projects are exploring some key opportunities that may help the hunger crisis. By adding value to farm crops such as flax, wheat, canola and emerging new crops, improvements are being made at the farmgate for producers. These advancements include developing new varieties to maximizing land use, encourage sustainability (soil erosion, fuel and water use) yielding larger, more nutritious crops. Canada needs to maintain its leadership in biotechnologies such as genomics and related biosciences and is in a prime position to use these emerging genomics tools to improve its economy, benefit the health of Canadians and lead the world in agri-food research technologies.
About Genome Prairie
Genome Prairie manages and supports innovative, large-scale genomics research projects in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Industry sectors such as agriculture, health, mining and energy are benefiting from the organization’s research and commercialization initiatives.
With its partners, Genome Prairie has supported more than $188 million of research activity in plant, animal and human genomics, bioinformatics, instrumentation development and bioethics since its establishment in 2000.
Through network establishment and regional priority consultations, Genome Prairie works collaboratively with all levels of government, universities and industry as well as Genome Canada, a not-for-profit organization implementing a national strategy in genomics and related bioscience research to benefit all Canadians.
Genome Prairie has three key roles:
1 Manage projects and facilitate regional participation and co-funding for Genome Canada and other genomics research projects in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
2 Provide regional leadership and support for collaborative efforts for genomic and bioscience research and knowledge transfer for the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
3 Promote awareness of recent advancements and societal impacts of genomics and bioscience research to government, industry, public and other stakeholders. www.genomeprairie.ca
References
1. http://www.wfp.org/hunger World food
Programme.
2. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5967/833 Radically Rethinking Agriculture for the 21st Century, N. V. Fedoroff,1,
