Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Plant breeding
(including genetic
modification)
Animal nutrition
(nutritional and safety
assessment of feed)
Animal breeding
(including clones and GM
animals)
Fig. 1.3.
Animal nutrition (nutritional assessment of feeds) between plant and animal breeding.
to demonstrate results in animal feeding.
Dif erent types of animal feeding studies for
the nutritional assessment of GM feed will
be assessed. Sometimes, it is impossible, and
also not necessary, to strictly separate the
nutritional and safety assessment of feed/
food. Kleter and Kok (2010) and Davies and
Kuiper (2011) consider the following aspects
of risk assessments that also include
nutritional aspects:
characteristics of donor and recipient
organism;
genetic modii cation and its functional
consequences;
potential environmental impact;
agronomic characteristics;
compositional and nutritional character-
istics;
potential for toxicity and allergenicity of
gene products, plant metabolites and
whole GM plants;
inl uence of processing on the properties
of food and feed;
potential for changes in dietary intake;
and
potential for long-term nutritional
impact.
Some principles of the genetic modii cation
of plants are demonstrated in Chapter 2.
1.
Building energy ei ciency.
2.
Increasing yield on large-scale farms.
3.
Reduced food waste.
4.
Reducing municipal water leakage.
5.
Urban densii cation (leading to major
transport ei ciency gains).
6.
Higher energy ei ciency in the iron and
steel industry.
7.
Increasing yields on smallholder farms.
8.
Increasing transport fuel ei ciency.
9.
Increasing the penetration of electric
and hybrid vehicles.
10.
Reducing land degradation.
11.
Improving end-use ei ciency.
12.
Increasing oil and coal recovery.
13.
Improving irrigation techniques.
14.
Shifting road freight to rail and barge.
15.
Improving power plant ei ciency.
Another assessment has been carried out by
KMPG International (2012). h e authors
analysed the global sustainability megaforces
over the next two decades with an impact on
every business and came to the following
facts (no ranking):
climate change;
energy and fuel;
material resource scarcity;
water scarcity;
population growth;
wealth;
urbanization;
food security;
ecosystem decline; and
deforestation.
Resource productivity and/or resource
ei ciency measures are key challenges for
the future, as shown in the two assessments
below. Dobbs
et al
.
(2011) integrated more
than 130 potential resource measures in a
resource productivity cost curve. Under the
top 15 measures, accounting for roughly
75% of the total resource productivity, one
may i nd many opportunities associated
with agriculture. h e following ranking
shows the 15 opportunities (Dobbs
et al
.,
2011):
Both assessments contain similar elements
concerning future developments and limit-
ations. Of course, such assessments may be
very helpful for the future, but they are
man-made and not completely free of
individual or group-inl uenced motions and
expectations. For example, it is not possible
to assess the consequences of new dis-
coveries and developments.
