The potential impact of plant biotechnology on the Millennium Development Goals

Abstract

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are international development targets for the year 2015 that aim to achieve relative improvements in the standards of health, socioeconomic status and education in the world's poorest countries. Many of the challenges addressed by the MDGs reflect the direct or indirect consequences of subsistence agriculture in the developing world, and hence, plant biotechnology has an important role to play in helping to achieve MDG targets. In this opinion article, we discuss each of the MDGs in turn, provide examples to show how plant biotechnology may be able to accelerate progress towards the stated MDG objectives, and offer our opinion on the likelihood of such technology being implemented. In combination with other strategies, plant biotechnology can make a contribution towards sustainable development in the future although the extent to which progress can be made in today's political climate depends on how we deal with current barriers to adoption.

Social Impacts of GM Crops in Agriculture: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Such aspects essentially need to be studied at individual or farm level. The many mentions of wellbeing in studies without farm-level data (37/48 studies) thus either relied on the limited number of empirically-based studies available or provided a more general discussion, or merely express future hopes or concerns, about potential wellbeing effects of GM crops (e.g., [49,54,79]). Eight of the 11 bottom-up studies connected wellbeing with empirically observed or farmers' experiences of effects on health.…”

A question of balance: achieving appropriate nutrient levels in biofortified staple crops

“…merely shifting the challenge of micronutrient deficiency from one set of nutrients to another (2,18) .…”

“…Up to one-third of the world's population is currently at risk from vitamin deficiency disorders, which can have a severe impact on metabolism resulting in cumulative damage to health (1,2) . Strategies to address vitamin deficiency include the provision of supplements, the fortification of processed foods and the biofortification of crops to increase the vitamin content at source (3,4) .…”

The contribution of transgenic plants to better health through improved nutrition: opportunities and constraints

“…The poverty-malnutrition-disease cycle needs to be broken by multipoint interventions that provide direct, effective and sustainable approaches to increase the economic welfare of the world's poorest people, including the provision of drugs and vaccines that tackle poor health, and adequate access to nutritious food (Perseley 2000). Although there are many global initiatives promoting short and mid-term strategies that tackle poverty, food insecurity/malnutrition and disease, we need sustainable solutions that provide the means for the world's poor to build their own healthy societies, as envisaged by the Millennium Development Goals (Yuan et al 2011).…”