I’m sure you have heard of the new thing in food production: Genetically modified foods. Very controversial, but the newest thing in a long line of increasing the possibilities of food. This has sprung forward as a replacement to selective breeding, which has, through generations of breeding, given us many of the species we have today. Both of these manipulation options have their positives as well as their down falls, but what if we could combine the best of both? Enter Molecular Breeding: a technique that allows breeding for traits as in selective breeding, but is much more specific because it uses genetic markers to find and breed for very specific traits.
In this article that we read from Greenwire, molecular breeding is presented as the best solution to the food problems facing our world today. Because it is the best of both worlds, it has less controversy, and has little regulation; it is being put into much wider use as the preferred method of agricultural development. By using molecular breeding to find desirable traits, they have managed to combine traits from obscure and low yield rice, for example, and make the common rice be able to withstand flood for two weeks. Or create a corn that is practically exploding with vitamin A, or wheat that can withstand the attack of aphids. This process, rather than cutting and pasting genetic strands from totally disparate species, can simply speed up the species’ own evolutionary process by combining genes from the same species.
I find this new concept very interesting. It doesn’t evolve actually ripping the genome apart, which is a plus for me, and I find that this seems to be much less invasive. This combines the speed of genetic modification with the natural protection of the plants natural genetics. I think that this holds so much more promise for our future without moving ahead too fast or endangering the genetic uniquity of these species.