反刍动物转基因方面一篇综述.pdfVIP

21 Genetic Manipulation of Ruminant Biochemistry and Physiology for Improved Productivity: Current Status and Future Potential K.A. WARD CSIRO Animal Production, LB1, Delivery Centre, Blacktown, Australia Introduction The provision of an adequate supply of food during the next 50 years is one of the major challenges that face mankind. We have two related problems, namely, maintain- ing the current food supply to ensure an adequate diet for our present population of about 6 billion people and then increasing production levels to provide for the increased population to AD 2050, which may reach about 8–9 billion people. While improvements in production, storage and distribution procedures could have a major impact on current food availability, it is highly likely that increased productivity will also be required over the next 5 decades. Over the past 100 years, total world food pro- ductivity has increased at just under 3% per annum, due to the implementation of farm mechanization, irrigation, the widespread use of fertilizers, treatments for plant and animal parasites and infectious diseases, and greatly improved methods of food storage and distribution. We might expect these past innovations to help maintain cur- rent levels of production and to provide further increases in productivity when applied to farms that are not yet using advanced farming technology. However, there are grow- ing signs that these approaches are reaching their current limits because of environmen- tal factors such as water availability, soil degradation, increasing disease resistance and more subtle deleterious climatic changes. They may ther