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APPLIED BIOTECHNOLOGY IN THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE TROPICAL FOOD SPECIES

The staple foods of the semi-arid and humid tropics (e.g. cassava, yam, banana, plantain/banana, millets, groundnut, cowpea, chickpea, pigeonpea) feed tens of millions of poor people daily yet receive relative little attention from the biotechnology industry, because they are not major cash crop commodities. These crops are mostly consumed in the home or villages. The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) bridge this gap by linking advanced research institutions around the world to developing countries to help them share the benefits of biotechnology. Molecular markers are being used to tag specific chromosome segments bearing the desired gene(s) to be transferred (or incorporated) into the breeding lines (or populations) while transgenic plants offer new genes to the breeding pool. Recent advances made at by these Future Harvest Centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), or together with its research partners worldwide resulted in (i) developing transgenic plants to overcome pest and disease constraints, (ii) producing new diagnostic tools for dangerous food contaminants, diseases and pests (iii) pre-empting breakdowns of plant resistance to crop diseases by understanding the “enemy” with the aid of DNA markers and by learning the language of resistance and putting it to use, (iv) better genebank and biodiversity management of tropic crops using new molecular tools, (v) finding genes with DNA markers and magnifying the power of selection in plant breeding. Furthermore, positions of useful genes in target crops can be inferred and cross-referencing to the maps of other most popular crops owing to gene synteny, which may allow the eventual intergeneric transfer of genes. For example, one day the genes providing extreme drought tolerance of pearl millet may be able to be introgressed into other cereals such as rice, sorghum or maize, to achieve more water-efficient crops. Introduction Food production in the tropical developing world must rise dramatically to keep pace with the expected increase in population. The staple foods of the developing world feed tens of millions of poor people daily yet receive relative little attention from the biotechnology industry, because they are not major cash crop commodities (they are mostly consumed in the home or village). Although many types of intervention will be important, much of the increase will need to come from advances in crop productivity. The successful augmentation of traditional approaches to plant breeding based on advances in applied biotechnology will be a critical component in this endeavor (Dodds et al. 2001). Plant breeders determine their genetic response to selection (R) by the following equation: R = ihσP where i is the selection intensity, expressed in standardized units, h is the narrow-sense heritability in the reference population, and σP is the phenotypic standard deviation of the