Introduction of C4 traits into rice to increase photosynthetic efficiency

Introduction of C4 traits into rice to increase photosynthetic efficiency(c4rice.com)

41 points by kardashian007 9 years ago | 21 comments

whyenot 9 years ago |

land that currently provides enough rice to feed 27 people will need to support 43 by 2050

if there were fewer mouths, you would need less rice. I realize it isn't an area the Gates Foundation is active in, but there is quite a bit of evidence that educating and empowering women reduces population growth[1]. In many parts of the world women are still treated like property, forced into marriage, and have no access to family planning or education.

1. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-women-can-sav...

makmanalp 9 years ago | |

And quite often also educating men:

> President Recep Tayyip Erdogan encourages women to have at least three children.

> "No matter how successful a woman is, a woman who denies her motherhood, who gives up on looking after the home is incomplete, is only half, is at risk of losing her uniqueness," Erdogan said Sunday during a speech to the Women and Democracy Association.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/09/europe/erdogan-turkey-mansplai...

me_again 9 years ago | |

Actually that is an area the Gates Foundation is active in: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Development...

tcj_phx 9 years ago | | |

From your link:

>> Invest in New Contraceptive Methods

>> Some women do not access or use contraceptives for a variety of reasons, even when they want to avoid pregnancy. They may have misconceptions about their risk of becoming pregnant, or be deterred by the cost, inconvenience, or concerns about side effects. ... "

The Gates Foundation is paying for "a reformulation of Pfizer’s Depo-Provera® (medroxyprogesterone acetate)" [1]. The usual side effect of this drug is gaining weight. Usually it's about 20 pounds. Some women gain 40+ pounds after a few rounds of this drug [2].

[1] http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2... [2] https://www.reddit.com/user/ihateyoudepo

I suspect that the Depo Provera injections at about age 20 is what turned my friend into a drug addict. Drug use caused her first psychotic episodes, and her first court-ordered psychiatrists weren't smart enough to make the connection between her previous use of a prescription endocrine disruptor (Provera) and the following depression that she self-treated with street drugs.

Anyone who uses Provera drug is ignorant of the harm it actually causes, or is malicious.

edit: fixed italics above edit2: changed txt above to 'endocrine disruptor'

teslabox 9 years ago |

Rats consume a sizeable percentage of rice production. From an earlier story [1]:

  The next call came from Australia in 2006. Biologists there
  wanted an adaptation of Mouseopause for rats. Rats, they told 
  her, were eating 30% of the rice crop in Australia and 
  Indonesia. If she could reduce the rat population by even half, 
  they claimed, the crops that would be saved could feed millions 
  of people.

[1] Man v rat: could the long war soon be over? (theguardian.com), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12542718

Agricultural output is always variable. The world needs more storage capacity [2], and to better support small farmers. There's the ancient parable about "seven years of abundance" preceding "seven years of famine". Only "old" grain should be fed to animals.

For the most part, genetic engineering has been used to sell pesticides. While this C3->C4 innovation might not be as harmful as Monsanto's, it would be better to deal with our other agricultural problems too. Getting rats' numbers under control, and other low-tech investments (such as was undertaken in Thailand starting in the 1960's [3]), would be just as effective as throwing new seeds at farmers...

Haiti demonstrates that politics is the most important factor for determining agricultural output. [4]

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_silo [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_production_in_Thailand [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12531999 - "Why Are Haiti's Coffee Trees So Tall?"

germinalphrase 9 years ago |

One of the members of this team - Jane Langdale - did a talk at Stewart Brand's Long Now Foundation.

Well worth a listen: http://longnow.org/seminars/02016/mar/14/radical-ag-c4-rice-...

fulafel 9 years ago |

We are using most of grown crops as feed in meat production. So we don't have to increase production to keep up with population growth, the other option is to cut down on conspicuous consumption in what we eat.

mcculley 9 years ago | |

Do you think that the majority of meat consumption is conspicuous consumption?

Kliment 9 years ago | | |

I think a lot of it if force of habit combined with the externalities of meat production not being reflected in the price of meat, making it cheaper to buy than it is in terms of overall cost. Meat consumption is a cultural element as well as a dietary one.

fulafel 9 years ago | | |

Increases in meat consumption are happening motsly in the developing world, and it's largely a status thing.

In the west it's a little more complicated since it's embedded in the food culture, and has a big systemic component (subsidies), but having a lot of meat at the table is traditionally considered a sign of prosperity here as well.

djfm 9 years ago |

land that currently provides enough rice to feed 27 people will need to support 43 by 2050

Honest question: can't we assume that, as population grows, people will just plant more rice?

Sure this cannot be done everywhere, but there's surely some arable land somewhere that can grow, and maybe technology can help in other ways than by manipulating the genome of plants.

For instance, if we had cheap energy or a very efficient desalinating tech, we could desalinate ocean water and cultivate normal rice where there are deserts now...

In France farmers are complaining that the prices of farm products are too low and it sounds like there are many places where we produce way too much for too few consumers.

Instead of playing god to reduce a risk in 2050, can't we try right now to find economical, political, or technical ways to take the surplus from one place and bring it to places where food is already dramatically lacking?

EDIT: formatting

swombat 9 years ago | |

Sure we can! Which rainforest do you want to cut down to make space for the new fields?

tgb 9 years ago | |

Why wouldn't you want to do both?

makomk 9 years ago |

This is an interesting proposal though I'm not sure it'll come to much. It's an awful lot more complex than any of the commercial GM plants, requiring a number of genes spread across multiple cells all of which need to be switched on at the right time and place, plus structural changes to the plant leaves whose genetic roots apparently aren't understood: https://c4rice.com/the-science/engineering-photosynthesis-wh...

jhou2 9 years ago | |

I agree. The researchers are aware of the challenge. There is so much we don't know about the C4 pathway and then to somehow successfully merge parts of it into a C3 plant. It might be easier to develop a C4 plant that can thrive in a rice-centric environment.

partycoder 9 years ago |

Reminds me of golden rice. It was created to solve nutritional deficiencies in about the same populations, but didn't succeed. I hope this initiative does.

nbarbettini 9 years ago | |

Golden Rice isn't a failure, it just hasn't yet been deployed at a large scale. The folks working on it have been making a lot of progress, but it's been slow. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice#Golden_Rice_2)

Sadly, part of the reason why it's been delayed is due to fearmongering by groups like Greenpeace who are ideologically opposed to genetic engineering.

DanBC 9 years ago | | |

> Sadly, part of the reason why it's been delayed is due to fearmongering by groups like Greenpeace who are ideologically opposed to genetic engineering.

Some of the delay was calm objection to massive corporations. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/bulletin/2000/Number%2010/78(10)new...

Golden rice had a bunch of patents from over 20 organisations -- putting farmers at risk of licence violation. Pressure from Greenpeace and WHO (and WHO aren't known as a radical anti-GMO org) helped companies like Monsanto declare that they wouldn't be using terminator genes and would allow farmers to collect and sow some of their crop. (But only farmers who earn less than $10,000 per year).

Effects on the Hypothalmic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis Some patients receiving medroxyprogesterone acetate may exhibit suppressed adrenal function. Medroxyprogesterone acetate may have cortisol-like glucocorticoid activity and provide negative feedback to the hypothalamus or pituitary. This may result in decreased plasma cortisol levels, decreased cortisol secretion, and low plasma ACTH levels. The use of DEPO-PROVERA Sterile Aqueous Suspension may, due to its cortisol-like glucocorticoid activity, also produce Cushingoid symptoms such as weight gain, edema/fluid retention, and facial swelling.

The next call came from Australia in 2006. Biologists there wanted an adaptation of Mouseopause for rats. Rats, they told her, were eating 30% of the rice crop in Australia and Indonesia. If she could reduce the rat population by even half, they claimed, the crops that would be saved could feed millions of people.