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Exploring the future of GM technology in sustainable local food systems in Colombia.

ABSTRACT: The security of Earth's food systems is challenged by shifting regional climates. While agricultural processes are disrupted by climate change, they also play a large role in contributing to destabilizing greenhouse gases. Finding new strategies to increase yields while decreasing agricultural environmental impacts is essential. Tropical agriculture is particularly susceptible to climate change: local, smallholder farming, which provides a majority of the food supply, is high risk and has limited adaptation capacity. Rapid, inexpensive, intuitive solutions are needed, like the implementation of genetically modified (GM) crops. In the Latin American tropics, high awareness and acceptance of GM technologies, opportunities to test GM crops as part of local agricultural educations, and their known economic benefits, support their use. However, this is not all that is needed for the future of GM technologies in these areas: GM implementation must also consider environmental and social sustainability, which can be unique to a locality. Primarily from the perspective of its educators, the potential of a rural Colombian university in driving GM implementation is explored, including the role of this type of university in producing agricultural engineers who can innovate with GM to meet regionally-dependent environmental and cultural needs that could increase their sustainability.

SUBMITTER: Cardenas Pardo NJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10349173 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Exploring the future of GM technology in sustainable local food systems in Colombia.

Cárdenas Pardo Néstor Julián NJ Rodriguez Robayo Dolly Esperanza DE Fernandez Lizarazo John Cristhian JC Peña-Quemba Diego Camilo DC McGale Erica E

Frontiers in genome editing 20230630

The security of Earth's food systems is challenged by shifting regional climates. While agricultural processes are disrupted by climate change, they also play a large role in contributing to destabilizing greenhouse gases. Finding new strategies to increase yields while decreasing agricultural environmental impacts is essential. Tropical agriculture is particularly susceptible to climate change: local, smallholder farming, which provides a majority of the food supply, is high risk and has limite ...[more]

PMID: 37457887

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Project description:Background Food security is becoming an increasingly important global issue. Anthropogenic factors such as rapid urbanization and industrialization have strained finite resources like land and water. Therefore, against the impending threat of food security, the world can no longer rely on traditional methods to meet its needs. Instead, more creative and technologically advanced methods must be adopted to maximise diminishing natural resources. Singapore is a good case study of a small city-state that is trying to increase its own self-production of food using technology. Scope and approach This review highlights the technologies that Singapore have adopted in enhancing food security given its limitation in natural resources. These methodologies serve as a case study that can be used as a reference point in light of the increasingly finite natural resources. The review also presents the advantages of these techniques as well as challenges that need to be overcome for them to be more widely adopted. Key findings and conclusion To increase self-production of food and enhance its food security, Singapore has employed the use of technologies such as vertical farming and aquaponics in urban farming, nutrient recovery from food waste, biodegradable food packaging from durian rinds, natural preservatives, insect farming, microalgae and cultivated meat as alternative protein sources. These technologies workaround Singapore's land and natural resource constraints, which many countries around the world can adapt. However, many of them are still relatively nascent with numerous challenges, which have to be addressed before they can be widely accepted and implemented. Highlights • Long term agriculture and pollution have led to depletion of natural resources.• Technology innovations can be used to mitigate natural resource constraints.• Singapore has adopted numerous technologies to enhance food security.• Areas include urban farming, processing technology and alternative food sources.• Singapore's model provides a good example to increase self-production of food.

Project description:The agri-food systems face many global and local challenges, including climate change, environmental degradation, and loss of biodiversity. As the global population continues to rise, the demand for food and other ecosystem services also increases, escalating the pressure on agri-food systems. There is an urgent need to transition agri-food systems' goals from production efficiency to sustainability to address these challenges. Within agri-food systems, niche marketing has gained prominence in achieving sustainability. Using the PRISMA framework, this study performs a systematic literature review up to November 2024 to gather existing evidence on how niche markets can promote sustainable agri-food systems while also identifying challenges and policy options. To this end, two databases were employed: Web of Sciences and Scopus. Findings from the selected literature (58 articles) indicate that developing niche markets to deliver sustainable agriculture is subject to various challenges related to risk exposure, entry barriers, changing consumer preferences, and institutional context. In general, three main ways through which niche markets can support sustainable agri-food systems were identified. Firstly, niche markets provide financial incentives to encourage farmers to adopt environmentally friendly practices by increasing the price premiums and limiting competitors' market access. Secondly, niche markets facilitate partnerships and networks that enable sharing know-how and best practices, reducing the high cost of transitioning to sustainable production systems. Thirdly, niche markets promote radical innovations and technologies that enable increased economic efficiency and environmental performance. In terms of policy implications, public initiatives fostering the expansion of niche markets in agri-food production should increase financial support, access to credit, and legal recognition of certifications for environmentally friendly products. Other measures include fostering knowledge transfer and networking between farmers and consumers.

Project description:Persistent food insecurity in the global south has triggered calls for sustainable development worldwide. Moreover, more than a quarter of the world's population suffers from micronutrient deficiencies or hidden hunger. The population bulge, declining soil fertility and inadequate/inappropriate use of farm inputs in Sub-Saharan Africa place it in a precarious position. Multi-nutrient fertilizer blends have been mooted as a key innovation in closing yield gaps and boosting food and nutrition security. This study assessed the extent of multi-nutrient fertilizer blends utilization and yield response across agroecological zones and their on-farm profitability under Kenyan smallholder farmer conditions. We collected data through a detailed household survey conducted in eight counties in Kenya representative of high, medium, and low productivity zones using a sample of 1094 smallholder farmers. Multi-nutrient fertilizers increased maize yields significantly (P < 0.05), eliciting a 400% yield increase compared to the control and 108% greater maize yield than conventional fertilizers in the high potential zone. Conversely, at 3.7 t/ha conventional fertilizers elicited a significant (P < 0.05) yield response in Irish potatoes in the high potential areas. Multi-nutrient fertilizers increased on-farm profitability of crops, specifically for potato production systems where a benefit: cost ratio (BCR) of more than 2 was observed. Farmers may break even when they use multi-nutrient fertilizers on maize particularly in the low potential areas. Therefore, there is considerable potential for multi-nutrient fertilizers to increase crop productivity while being economically viable across agroecological zones and cropping systems. However, the uptake of multi-nutrient fertilizers among farmers is quite low across the country, except for small pockets where limited interventions have been carried out. This calls for sustained efforts to scale multi-nutrient fertilizers with a focus on clear messaging that stresses the need to apply appropriate rates of various nutrients including the secondary nutrients and micro-nutrients.

Dataset Information

Exploring the future of GM technology in sustainable local food systems in Colombia.

Publications

Exploring the future of GM technology in sustainable local food systems in Colombia.

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