University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Genetics. 2011 May;188(1):11-20. doi: 10.1534/genetics.111.128553.
The United States and the world face serious societal challenges in the areas of food, environment, energy, and health. Historically, advances in plant genetics have provided new knowledge and technologies needed to address these challenges. Plant genetics remains a key component of global food security, peace, and prosperity for the foreseeable future. Millions of lives depend upon the extent to which crop genetic improvement can keep pace with the growing global population, changing climate, and shrinking environmental resources. While there is still much to be learned about the biology of plant-environment interactions, the fundamental technologies of plant genetic improvement, including crop genetic engineering, are in place, and are expected to play crucial roles in meeting the chronic demands of global food security. However, genetically improved seed is only part of the solution. Such seed must be integrated into ecologically based farming systems and evaluated in light of their environmental, economic, and social impacts-the three pillars of sustainable agriculture. In this review, I describe some lessons learned, over the last decade, of how genetically engineered crops have been integrated into agricultural practices around the world and discuss their current and future contribution to sustainable agricultural systems.
美国和世界在食品、环境、能源和健康等领域面临着严峻的社会挑战。从历史上看，植物遗传学的进步为应对这些挑战提供了新的知识和技术。在可预见的未来，植物遗传学仍然是全球粮食安全、和平与繁荣的关键组成部分。数以百万计的生命取决于作物遗传改良的程度，以适应不断增长的全球人口、不断变化的气候和不断缩小的环境资源。尽管人们对植物与环境相互作用的生物学仍有许多需要了解，但植物遗传改良的基本技术，包括作物遗传工程，已经到位，并有望在满足全球粮食安全的长期需求方面发挥关键作用。然而，经过基因改良的种子只是解决方案的一部分。这种种子必须融入基于生态的农业系统，并根据其对环境、经济和社会的影响进行评估——这是可持续农业的三大支柱。在这篇综述中，我描述了过去十年中，人们是如何将基因工程作物整合到世界各地的农业实践中的，并讨论了它们目前和未来对可持续农业系统的贡献。
