Genetically Modified Plants as Animal Feed

摘要

As a result of the ever increasing global population, the demands for food, fuel, feedstuff's, land, water, and global consequences of climate change bring a significant challenge to agriculture and its ability to produce products to meet these needsin a sustainable way. Livestock and poultry producers and farmers are continuing to look for ways to improve their farm enterprise's output, efficiency, and economic viability in an environmentally friendly manner. Producers must have feed ingredients and products available to them in sufficient quantities and quality at affordable prices. Biotechnology is the most promising tool available today to help meet these demands. The growing of biotech crops containing insect resistance and/or herbicide tolerance traits globally have already resulted in billions of dollars of benefits to farmers through increased yields and decreased costs of production. The environmental benefits include more efficient use of land for food and feed purposes, reduction in thevolume of pesticides used, and reduction of carbon dioxide emission from reduced fuel use and soil carbon sequestration which is equivalent to removing millions of cars from the roads. Quality of feed ingredients will continue to improve with enhanced nutritional traits, reduced mycotoxins, and reduced anti-nutritional traits. A rigorous regulatory system is in place to assure that all commercial biotech products are as safe and wholesome as their conventional counterparts. In the future, plants will be genetically modified to be tolerant to drought and cold stress, saline conditions, resistance to a broader range of economic important insects and viruses, more efficient users of nitrogen, and contain enhanced traits such as lower lignin, altered amino acids/protein, altered fat and fatty acids, altered carbohydrates, increased levels of vitamins and minerals, and others including enzymes. In general, use of biotechnology in agriculture will be crucial in meeting global food and feed needs with increased yields, less inputs, improved efficiencies, and mitigation of negative environmental effects while providing significant economic benefits to the producer.