Stronger Crops by Jim Parks on Creators.com

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Stronger Crops

In the not-too-distant future, it is predicted that the world will be heavy with people. All those people are going to be hungry, so any advancement in the fight against the bugs that reduce crop yields (witness Uganda's $70 million to $200 million banana loss to bacteria) will be welcome.

That's why a new report from Britain's Sainsbury Laboratory is so encouraging. Usually, researchers focus on a single gene in an attempt to bolster its resistance to a single type of bacteria, but the Sainsbury scientists have done it differently: They've transferred a gene from wild plants of one family and placed it into crop plants from an entirely different family.

The resulting plants have shown resistance that has been described as "drastically enhanced"— apparently because the bacteria isn't adapted to the resistance from the other strain.

So if crops will one day protect themselves, think of the environmental and health benefits from not using pesticides!

Questions can be sent to Jim Parks at jrparks@mac.com. To find out more about Jim Parks and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.