Modern Tools for Drug Discovery in Agricultural Research

摘要

6.1 Introduction Global food supply poses a continuous challenge to agriculture today and will continue to do so in the future. The growing world population and an increasing demand for higher quantity and quality of food are not compensated by an equivalent increase of available farmland or other resources, such as for instance, water. In contrast, the area of farmland per head of population has decreased dramatically during the last 50 years. This trend is continuing and even accelerating in some areas of the world. In addition, crop losses due to pest, disease, and weed damage are still as high as 50% overall. This situation calls for the systematic use of more intensive and sustainable crop production methods in order to feed the world's growing population and to satisfy both their basic and developing needs.