Liliana Samuel in PhysOrg: Researchers in Argentina have
isolated a drought-resistant sunflower gene and spliced it into soy, bolstering
hopes for improved yields as the South American agricultural powerhouse
grapples with global warming.
Raquel Chan's team identified the HAHB4 gene that makes
sunflowers resist dry conditions and implanted it in rockcress flowering plants
known as arabidopsis, whose resistance to drought increased considerably.
Her team has signed an agreement with Argentine firm
Bioceres, which is co-owned by over 230 agricultural producers, to use and
exploit the gene. The firm has conducted tests on soy, wheat and corn crops.
Soy is the biggest cash crop in Argentina, a major exporter
of byproducts like soybean oil and flour, but the prospect of creating a
transgenic soy plant has some experts concerned about the potential for
environmental harm.
Supporters of the technology say the boost in productivity
could mean as much as $10 billion in added profits each year, particularly
after a severe drought recently slashed Argentina's soy output by more than a
third.
But the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace said the
transgenic seeds would promote deforestation and the expansion of soy crops
into new regions such as Patagonia, as well as cause a "significant
loss" in biodiversity and force thousands of farmers and native people to
relocate.
And because it is genetically modified, the new soy seed
would have little to no prospects of being sold in markets where such crops are
opposed or outlawed, as in Europe....
Harvesting soy in Argentina, shot by
Arpatt, under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication
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