Improving a stable food for a growing population

The problem is that as the world's population of people grows so does the demand for food. As a food staple for half the world's population, rice is in high demand.  Also, the changes in climate provide a problem to rice production since rice is grown in low elevation, delta regions where it can be subjected to salt water as sea levels rise.  By increasing the tolerance of rice so it can survive pests, floods, or droughts it is possible to increase the quality and yield of rice.  The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Ministry of Science and Technology in Vietnam, set forth to address these problems with the Memorandum of Understanding on rice genomics research.  This project means to sequence the genomes of 30 varieties of rice in order to improve the yield, quality, tolerance to floods, salt water, and droughts.  They also intend to improve the resistance of the rice to diseases and pest, and most importantly that the rice can transfer these traits to new rice varieties.  Then this genomic platform can be used by rice breeders to improve the traits of their rice as well. In the future the information of rice genes may be useful to sequencing genes of other more complicated foods, like wheat.

This research, especially today, is crucial.  Food is already in short supply all over the world, and if we can use technology to alleviate the hunger problem or at least keep it from getting worse, then we are obligated as human beings to do so.