High Feed Costs

Article on high feed costs, acreage supply (a point left out of the SOTU address?) and agricultural biotech:

In Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) countries, in spite of the abundance of natural resources and continued investments in development, poverty and food insecurity affect more than 55 percent of the rural population. Fifteen years ago, plant biotechnology comprised only a few applications of tissue culture, recombinant DNA technology and monoclonal antibodies. Today, genetic transformation, and marker-aided selection and breeding are just a few of the examples of the applications in crop improvement with profound implications for the LAC Region.

Plant biotechnology applications must respond to increasing demands in terms of food security, socio-economic development and promote the conservation, diversification and sustainable use of plant genetic resources as basic inputs for the future agriculture of the Region.