Session 3: Agriculture & Nutrition Title : Doubling Crop Productivity And Ensuring Nutritional Security Moderator : Dr Ganesh Kishore

1. Agriculture “ Doubling Crop Productivity and Ensuring Nutritional Security ” Dr. Ganesh M Kishore October 6, 2009 Kuala Lumpur

3. Agriculture – Doubling Crop Productivity and ensuring nutritional security "civilization as it is known today could not have evolved, nor can it survive, without an adequate food supply”. "The first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind.” Dr. Norman Borlaug

4. Significant gap – Supply & Demand

5. Productivity Varies Tremendously by Country Metric Tons per Hectare … Creating a Significant Opportunity for enhancement The Top 10 Countries 8.93 8.54 7.80 7.24 6.96 6.52 5.29 4.81 4.18 3.69 28.7 0.7 1.2 1.7 1.2 2.3 0.4 24.1 1.1 1.1 Corn Hectares (Million)

6. Leveraging the genomic information Arabidopsis thaliana Rice Maize Poplar Several photosynthetic eukaryotic unicellular genomes also sequenced Has the potential to accelerate trait discovery and breeding Palm Sorghum Plant Base Pairs Genes Arabidopsis thaliana 125 million 28,000 Rice 390 million 37,544 Maize 2500 million 50,000 Poplar 480 million 32,000 Palm ~ 1800 million ?

7. Most breeders have accessed a narrow allelic pool Courtesy: Steve Tanksley Sunflower

8. Oil Palm – The Miracle Crop!

9. Harvesting Solar Energy has the Best Potential to Sustainably deliver Global Food, Energy and Material Needs Harvesting the Sun … Leveraging Nature Solar Panel Electricity Higher Plants Chemicals Microbes Biological harvesting is the best known mechanism to produce portable chemical energy, food, feed and fiber sustainably