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Genomics and Applied Biology, 2011, Vol.2 No.4
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Research Report Open Access
OMICS based Interventions for Climate Proof Crops
Sajad Majeed Zargar
1,#
, Muslima Nazir
2,#
, Ganesh Kumar Agarwal
3,#
, Randeep Rakwal
4,5,#
1. School of Biotechnology, SKUAST-J, Chatha, Jammu-180009, India
2. Department of Botany, Jamia Hamdard University, Hamdrad Nagar, New Delhi-110062, India
3. Research Laboratory for Biotechnology and Biochemistry (RLABB), Kathmandu, Nepal
4. Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba305-8572, Japan
5. Department of Anatomy I, Showa University School of Medicine, Tokyo 142-8555, Japan
#. International Plant Proteomics Organization (INPPO), http://www.inppo.com
Corresponding author, smzargar@rediffmail.com;
Authors
Genomics and Applied Biology 2011, Vol.2 No.4 doi: 10.5376/gab.2011.02.0004
Received: 01 Dec., 2011
Accepted: 05 Dec., 2011
Published: 23 Dec., 2011
This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Zargar et al., 2011, OMICS based Interventions for Climate Proof Crops, Genomics and Applied Biology, 2011, Vol.2 No.4 (doi: 10.3969/gab.2011.02.0004)
Abstract
Agriculture – the key to human civilization without doubt can be regarded as an essential part of our daily lives providing
us our bread and butter. Food production or creation of fibers, fuels, raw materials & biopharmaceuticals forming the fundamental
basis of human and animal sustenance is because of crop and other plant species. With a long history of humankind and agriculture
co-existence, and immense & indispensable importance of agriculture in human sustenance today, it is therefore our duty to further
promote and sustain agriculture. The present global scenario takes our attention to what we call ‘Climate Change’. Adverse change in
climate can lead to imbalance in food production and ultimately imbalance of the human health, nutrition, and happiness. It is evident
that the impact of climate change covers all regions. Thus, we need strategies that enable us to increase our food production to feed
the ever-growing human population and at the same time keep sustainability and effect on environment in mind. This is where the
term sustainable agriculture comes into play. Indefinite food production without causing severe or irreversible damage to the
ecosystem is the key. Sustainable agriculture should not be misunderstood by totally abolishing new technologies. But it actually
aims at developing technologies that helps in improving agriculture production without having negative impact on the environment.
We here propose certain biotechnology-based strategies that can overcome negative impact of climate change and will also lead in
improving future food production and livelihood. Droughts, irregular precipitations, deviated temperatures are predicted to be
frequent in the near future. The question is, how do we tackle these problems? There is a need to have climate proof crops, i.e. the
crops that can sustain various abiotic stresses. So far conventional means have been exploited but looking at the looming population
and the intensity of climatic vagaries the need is to focus on new technologies having solutions with sustainability. One such
technology is omics, and where transcriptomics and proteomics are two key approaches. Large numbers of genes/proteins that are
involved in regulating different stresses and finally can be exploited to generate next-generation crops to enable enhanced food
production are available. Molecular breeding has tremendous scope that will ensure introgression of desirable traits in cultivars
without any linkage drag. Biotechnology also provides us the platform to look for desirable genes across genera and even the
kingdom. Thus genome revolution has to play a role in next green revolution to have climate proof crops that can improve future
food production and livelihood for sustainable human habitations.
Keywords
Climate proof crops; Abiotic stress; Genomics; Proteomics
Background
The imprints of climate change are clear. Numerous
crises and devastations due to this environmental
change are evident. There is a lot of discussion about
the means to cope with such changes. The report of
Declaration of the World Summit on Food Security
(Document WSFS 2009/2; Rome, 16-18 November
2009) states that more than one billion people
worldwide are hungry and poor, and this number, it
further states, will increase if governments do not