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This chapter considers the challenge of improving crop resource-use efficiency using biotechnology or traditional plant breeding. It argues that some of biotechnology's stated goals, such as more efficient use of water by crops, are unlikely to be achieved without tradeoffs. After providing an overview of crop genetic improvement via traditional plant breeding or biotechnology, the chapter discusses the importance of greater resource-use efficiency and increasing yield potential. It then explains how natural selection has improved the efficiency of photosynthesis as well as water-use efficiency and how tradeoffs limit biotechnology improvement of crop water use. It also assesses the potential of genetic engineering to improve nutrient-use efficiency and asserts that near-term benefits of biotechnology have been exaggerated. The chapter concludes with a review of biotechnology's possible benefits and risks.

This book proposes new approaches to improving agriculture based on the principles of evolutionary biology and natural selection. It argues that two popular approaches to improving agriculture, biotechnology and traditional plant breeding, have tended to ignore evolutionary tradeoffs—that is, cases where an evolutionary change that is positive in one context is negative in another—and that both of them would benefit from greater attention to evolution. Whether we focus on genetic improvement of crops or better management of agricultural ecosystems, the book emphasizes the need to identify (and sometimes accept) tradeoffs that constrained past evolution in order to find new solutions to agricultural problems. It also considers some of the challenges facing agriculture, such as resource-use efficiency and food security. This chapter provides an overview of the book.

This chapter considers some of the challenges that agriculture is facing now or will face in the near future, including resource-use efficiency and food security. It begins with a discussion of the goals of agriculture, such as improving productivity (yield per acre, to use no more land than necessary), efficiency in the use of scarce resources (to use no more water than necessary, for example), stability over years (to prevent even occasional famines), and sustainability (to maintain all of these benefits over the long term). It then examines the effects of agriculture on everyone, not just farmers, as well as agriculture's underlying long-term problems such as those relating to food supply, food production, and transportation. It also looks at threats to sustainability, particularly those farming practices that lead to long-term decreases in crop yield. Finally, it offers suggestions for limiting the negative environmental impact of agriculture.