By Hank Daniszewski
The race is on to develop new super crops to feed and fuel the planet,
says the head of an Ontario biotechnology firm.
Speaking to a seminar for grain farmers in London yesterday, Dave
Denis of Kingston-based Performance Plants Inc. said genetically-modified
crops with much higher yields are needed with global grain stock now at
record lows.

"We have to engineer our way out. I don't see any other way," said
Denis in an interview.

He said pressure to feed the growing global population will be
accelerated by the expanding middle classes in China and India, who have a
growing appetite for grain and meat products.

He said increasing production will be a challenge because bringing
more land into production will cut into wildlife habitat. Crop yields are
limited by more frequent drought and other extreme weather.

He said the answer is to genetically engineer crops with traits such
as drought, frost and disease resistance built in.

Denis said some Iowa farmers hold competitions where they get as much
as 450 bushels per acre.

Denis said new varieties of crops geared to energy production are on
the way. He said trials are now underway to grow crops such as switchgrass
than can be burned as fuel or turned into ethanol.

"The amounts of ethanol you can make from corn starch are trivial
compared to the need."

Syngenta, an agricultural chemical and seed company, sponsored the
seminar.


[lfpress.ca]