Challenges facing European agriculture and possible biotechnological solutions
Critical Reviews in Biotechnology, 2015
Agriculture faces many challenges to maximize yields while it is required to operate in an enviro... more Agriculture faces many challenges to maximize yields while it is required to operate in an environmentally sustainable manner. In the present study, we analyze the major agricultural challenges identified by European farmers (primarily related to biotic stresses) in 13 countries, namely Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, UK and Turkey, for nine major crops (barley, beet, grapevine, maize, oilseed rape, olive, potato, sunflower and wheat). Most biotic stresses (BSs) are related to fungi or insects, but viral diseases, bacterial diseases and even parasitic plants have an important impact on yield and harvest quality. We examine how these challenges have been addressed by public and private research sectors, using either conventional breeding, marker-assisted selection, transgenesis, cisgenesis, RNAi technology or mutagenesis. Both national surveys and scientific literature analysis followed by text mining were employed to evaluate genetic engineering (GE) and non-GE approaches. This is the first report of text mining of the scientific literature on plant breeding and agricultural biotechnology research. For the nine major crops in Europe, 128 BS challenges were identified with 40% of these addressed neither in the scientific literature nor in recent European public research programs. We found evidence that the private sector was addressing only a few of these "neglected" challenges. Consequently, there are considerable gaps between farmer's needs and current breeding and biotechnology research. We also provide evidence that the current political situation in certain European countries is an impediment to GE research in order to address these agricultural challenges in the future. This study should also contribute to the decision-making process on future pertinent international consortia to fill the identified research gaps.
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Papers by Bojin Bojinov
improved and adapted for application to different varieties of tomatoes. HPLC separation was achieved using a
reversed phase C18 column Discovery® with gradient system with acetonitril : methanol (8:2) and MTBE
(methyl tert-butyl ether) flow rate 1.0 mL/min for carotenoids (luteolin, lycopene and β-carotene), and column
Symmetry® with isocratic solvent system methanol: water (98:2) for quantitative determination of α-, β-and δ-
tocopherols. The calibration curves were linear from 10 to 500 μg/mL (r2>0.99) for tocopherols and from 5 to
50 μg/mL (r2>0.99) for carotenoids. The reliability of the proposed systems ware proved through
reproducibility test with different extracts from lyophilized tomatoes samples. Critical for the success of
determination was adding to mobile phases and during the extraction procedure synthetic antioxidant BHT (butylhydroxytoluene, 227 μmoll)."