Challenges and Opportunities of Genetically Modified Crops Production; Future Perspectives in Ethiopia, Review

Abstract

Introduction:Genetically modified (GM) crop species were proven to be a solution for the increasing food consumption in many countries. The cultivation of transgenic plants is increasing from time to time. In 2017 alone, 27 different genetically modified (GM) crop species were produced in 40 countries. Explanation:Biotechnology is revolutionizing science, promising to solve hunger, malnutrition and production demands of industrial raw materials from plants. However, there are biosafety concerns that GM crops may have unintended and hazardous impacts on living organisms well-being and environment both on target and non-target organisms. To tackle such potential problems many countries are implementing international as well as national biosafety regulations. America, Brazil, Belgium, China and India are among the top GM crop users in the world, whereas Egypt, Sudan, South Africa and Burkina Faso are leading GM crop producers in Africa. Ethiopia has also developed its own policy and biosafety regulations for biotechnology products. Conclusion:The Ethiopian government has given due attention to GM crops as a tool for the transformation of agricultural productivity and quality. Before a couple of years, Bt cotton (cotton containing toxic protein from Bacillus thuringiensis) has been introduced to Ethiopia and is expected to bring fundamental change in the production of fibers for the textile industries and also will have crucial consequence to the forthcoming use of the modern biotechnological Science in the country. The introduction of Bt cotton is a typical example worth mentioning here which shows a relative flexibility of the current Ethiopian biosafety regulation. This paper reviews the possible challenges and opportunities of using GM crops in Ethiopia.

Trend of Biotechnology Applications in Pest Management: A Review

“…3: Infographics of the global status of commercialized GM crops 2018. at presenting the comprehensive and exhaustive account of these diverse applications that witnessed tremendous contribution of biotechnology and GMO in food security and sustainable development. Biotech crops, developed with improved traits such as increased yield, more resistance to pests, improved nutrition, among others, are undeniably necessary to address these global challenges affecting the lives of so many families globally (ISAAA,2018;Gebretsadik and Kiflu 2018).The contributions of GM crops in some countries were reviewed recently (Shetty et al, 2018;Anderson et al, 2019). It can be witnessed that the commercial applications of GM to horticultural crops lag far behind those of agronomic crops.…”

Mapping the Land Use Changes in Cultivation Areas of Maize and Soybean from 2006 to 2017 in the North West and Free State Provinces, South Africa

“…It is expected that this will pose a challenge regarding how agricultural inputs match the outputs to keep up with demand. Agricultural food production will have to increase faster than the population growth [3,4]. This points to two things: (1) there will be an increased demand for arable land to expand the cultivation areas of various food crops [5], and (2) market and household crops that can generate more yield over the same or smaller cultivation areas will become a necessity [6].…”

“…Thus far, it is well documented that agricultural practices such as crop production and livestock rearing are some of the major contributors to land use change, often resulting in the deterioration of natural habitats [5]. Agriculture is said to be the single most important driver of biodiversity loss [5,6], alongside direct and indirect impacts of climate change, pests, and diseases [3,4].…”

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“…There are limited findings on horticultural crops, especially factors affecting their productivity, as majority of studies delve into the production management and marketing systems rather than [14,[19][20][21][22]41]. A missing component of studies on tomato production is understanding factors affecting tomato productivity of smallholder farmers who are widely known to grapple with low productivity of tomato.…”