The Future of Farming: Leveraging Micropeptides for Sustainable Crop Protection
Consider how modern-day agriculture compares to the kind practiced 100, 500, or 10,000 years ago. Farmers produce food on a larger scale than ever before, and standard practices use a heavy hand by relying on chemicals, such as fertilizers, pesticides, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), to ensure maximum productivity. However, these practices work against nature rather than with it, and as such, they are an unsustainable way to improve crop yields.
Climate change introduces further challenges to maintaining our food system—new and mounting stressors such as heat, drought, weeds, and pests all stunt crop growth. Chemical solutions have a limited ability to address these challenges and are even less effective as resistance builds up. GMOs, which permanently modify the plant’s genome, may alter a crop’s characteristics but also lack the flexibility to rapidly adjust its biological response to changing conditions. To prepare to feed a growing global population in the face of climate change, farmers must tap into plant biology to fine-tune how crops respond to each unique situation as it arises. A biological phenomenon using micropeptides for crop protection could be leveraged to do just that.
The State of the Field
There are several fundamental issues with agrochemical and GMO use in farming. Pesticides eliminate weeds, insects, bacteria, and fungi; however, their off-target effects on plants, animals, and microbes can upset the balance of the ecosystem. In particular, beneficial microbes in the soil promote crop growth, nutrient availability, and healthy soil structure. When chemicals and tilling practices disturb these microbes, crops lose their microscopic partners, the soil becomes increasingly depleted, and future crops will grow in deteriorating conditions. Furthermore, some chemical fertilizers run off into our watersheds and cause algal blooms that disrupt ocean and lake ecosystems.
GMOs are designed to have higher yields or greater resistance to stressors like pests and weeds. They represent one significant way in which the agricultural industry has shifted to meet higher demands and fortify crops to withstand environmental changes. Although this approach can be effective in specific settings and crops, genetic modification of an organism causes a permanent change. Even if this change may be beneficial today, there’s no telling how a specific genetic modification may perform in tomorrow’s environment. Climate change will likely demand ongoing “upgrades” to our existing GMOs, which will take significant time and money to create.
Besides the fundamental limitations of current agriculture practices, additional challenges associated with agricultural chemicals and GMOs continue to arise. For example, farmers are seeing a rise in herbicide resistance, so their options to combat weeds are dwindling. Since the 1980s, only one new herbicide with a new mode of action has become available. Farmers sometimes use higher quantities of existing chemicals to achieve the same effect, but this approach is costly and introduces elevated levels of chemicals into the environment. It also conflicts with government regulations and the public pressure on farmers to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to reduce environmental impact and health risks. Although the use of GMO crops may negate some of these issues, seeds can be extremely expensive. Additionally, the use of GMOs is subject to varied and constantly evolving legislative restrictions across the globe.
Overall, current agricultural practices overwhelm the environment, depreciate maximum yields, and contribute to climate change. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions were caused by agriculture in 2021. Farmers need crop protection solutions to integrate into sustainable agricultural practices that protect the future of global food production.
Achieving Crop Protection Through Micropeptides
Protein-coding gene products like micropeptides can change the future of farming by reducing dependence on chemical crop control products and GMOs. They represent a more sustainable, environmentally friendly tactic to navigate the uncertainty of climate change and provide food security for the global population for years to come.
Micropeptides are a step in a natural process that amplifies the production of the micropeptide’s counterpart, microRNA. The microRNA regulates the expression of specific genes, resulting in a targeted effect that can encourage crop growth, improve resilience against stressors, or inhibit the growth of weeds and pests. Because micropeptides are integrated into a plant’s innate biology, they exhibit highly targeted activity and affect only one or a few species, avoiding off-target effects, unlike current pesticides. Once applied, micropeptides degrade rapidly in soil, so they are cleared from the environment without causing widespread effects on our land and waterways.
In the future, micropeptide products could represent an affordable option for farmers, given their potency and efficacy at 1/10th to 1/100th the dose of traditional agrochemicals. Importantly, micropeptides may be combined with other products and integrated into existing practices to maximize yield without disrupting operation on the farm.
The Future of Farming with Biological Crop Protection
Micropeptides represent a groundbreaking technology with the potential to address many of the challenges associated with modern agriculture. Targeted, nonpermanent, and tailor-made, they can optimize the growth of virtually any crop in various environments.
In the future, using micropeptides instead of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and GMOs could result in sustainable farms that produce less chemical runoff that seeps into the environment and causes algal blooms. By preserving soil health, long-term improvements could be made in the health of the world’s farmland. Farmers may see reduced costs associated with crop protection, as the micropeptide products may be more effective at lower volumes. Finally, farmers would be able to help crops respond dynamically to the changing environment and the new stressors introduced by climate change.
The world population is predicted to reach almost 10 billion by 2050, creating an unprecedented demand for agricultural productivity. Micropeptides may play a major role to help us meet the growing need to produce safe, affordable, and nutritious food. By leveraging tools like micropeptides that work with the environment rather than against it, farmers can increase yields sustainably, restore habitats, reduce our environmental footprint, and improve soil health—all to secure our food system for years to come.
SDGs, Targets, and Indicators
1. SDGs Addressed or Connected to the Issues Highlighted in the Article:
- SDG 2: Zero Hunger
- SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
- SDG 13: Climate Action
- SDG 15: Life on Land
2. Specific Targets Under Those SDGs Based on the Article’s Content:
- SDG 2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters, and that progressively improve land and soil quality.
- SDG 12.4: By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment.
- SDG 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries.
- SDG 15.1: By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements.
3. Indicators Mentioned or Implied in the Article:
- Indicator for SDG 2.4: Proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture.
- Indicator for SDG 12.4: Number of parties to international multilateral environmental agreements on hazardous waste, including their compliance with the agreements.
- Indicator for SDG 13.1: Number of countries that have integrated mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning into primary, secondary and tertiary curricula.
- Indicator for SDG 15.1: Proportion of important sites for terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity that are covered by protected areas, by ecosystem type.
Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators
| SDGs | Targets | Indicators |
|---|---|---|
| SDG 2: Zero Hunger | 2.4: By 2030, ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems, that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters, and that progressively improve land and soil quality. | Proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture. |
| SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production | 12.4: By 2020, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment. | Number of parties to international multilateral environmental agreements on hazardous waste, including their compliance with the agreements. |
| SDG 13: Climate Action | 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries. | Number of countries that have integrated mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning into primary, secondary and tertiary curricula. |
| SDG 15: Life on Land | 15.1: By 2020, ensure the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, in particular forests, wetlands, mountains and drylands, in line with obligations under international agreements. | Proportion of important sites for terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity that are covered by protected areas, by ecosystem type. |
Behold! This splendid article springs forth from the wellspring of knowledge, shaped by a wondrous proprietary AI technology that delved into a vast ocean of data, illuminating the path towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Remember that all rights are reserved by SDG Investors LLC, empowering us to champion progress together.
Source: technologynetworks.com
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