One of the greatest challenges facing humanity today is finding ways to produce enough food to feed a world population that is expected to rise from 6 billion today to more than 9 billion by the middle of this century.

To meet that challenge, the Center for Molecular Agriculture at UC San Diego brings together researchers from the campus and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies to apply the new tools of genetic technology to enhance crop productivity, reduce losses caused by insects and disease, and improve the use of soil nutrients.

According to Biology Professor Maarten J. Chrispeels, the director of the center, this environmentally friendly approach not only produces greater and more nutritional foods, but also reduces the use of pesticides.
ìIn my own laboratory,î Chrispeels says, ìwe have recently developed, in collaboration with researchers in Australia, the first insect-resistant crop seeds by inserting a gene from a bean plant into a previously nonresistant garden pea. This eliminates the need for insecticides to protect the seeds."

In another laboratory, researchers led by Biology Professor Martin F. Yanofsky identified the genes responsible for ìpod shatterî in canola plants, a process that causes farmers to lose as much as half the oil-bearing canola seeds. By using genetic engineering techniques to eliminate pod-shattering, Yanofsky estimates that farmers can double their yields of canola seedsóa worldwide $9 billion-a-year industry that is rapidly growing because of the health benefits of canola oil.

ìIf you can double the yield,î he says, ìyou can plant the canola on half as much land and use half as much of the chemical fertilizers and pesticides that are now routinely sprayed on these plants.î

The development of new technological benefits for society is an important role for many of UC San Diegoís twenty-seven organized research units. These centers of research excellence facilitate collaborations among researchers, disseminate scientific results through conferences, and strengthen graduate and undergraduate education by providing access to state-of-the-art facilities and opportunities for research training.