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DR. M. JALALUDDIN Department of Agriculture University of Karachi

THIS refers to editorial, ‘Pathways out of poverty’ (May 21), followed up by a report on International Day for Biological Diversity (May 22). The theme for 2008 is ‘Biodiversity and Agriculture’.
Oblivious of the damage being continuously inflicted on the earth due to the indiscriminate use of natural resources, humankind is still on the run, degrading and eroding the preserves of nature.
Reports of degradation of landscape, deforestation, loss of plant and animal species are becoming too familiar. As the number of humans inhabiting the planet is rising, the number of plant and animal species are dropping. Habitat destruction and pollution are reducing the earth’s biological diversity.
Biological diversity is the backbone of sustainable advances in agriculture because without biodiversity we cannot make selection and recombination bio technologically. There is thus an urgent need for the conservation of species as well as for the restoration of degraded habitats.
The Industrial Revolution provided great benefits but also led to environmental changes in the form of pollution and eventually to climate change. What could be the strategy out of poverty. In vitro-application in crop, improvement has a world of strange possibilities. Man is changing the genetic make-up of many living organisms for providing a stable food supply.
The massive scale on which transgenic crop plants (a writeup by the writer on transgenic crops appeared on Business pages on June 13, 2005) are being released means that there is a potential for increasing food production and many of them can produce a new drug, a new foodstuff and a new material.
The genetic diversity is being lost at the rate of 137 plants daily in the world. Biotechnology can produce ‘wonder wheat’ which when planted in place of other wheat cultivars will end up being monoculture, biodiversity will then get reduced.
However, biotechnological methods are such that if we can transform on wheat variety with a gene, we can transform a lot more variety. So biotechnologically we can actually increase biodiversity by increasing the number of crops with desirable genes in them.
Ecosystem in Pakistan harbours and sustains the immense biodiversity with distinct habitats and climatic conditions, including homestead farming, grasslands, forests, deserts, wetlands and mangroves managements. These preserves of nature are to be conserved, and if need be then these can be genetically manipulated, for our sustenance.

 

 

 Source: By Daily Dawn