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Recent unforeseen developments in world geography and expected demographic realities lead almost everyone to ask each other: “when will we be experiencing food crises?” Lately increasing climate change stories come to the point: S. Arabia has decided to stop up 2015 to grow one of the main crop (wheat) due to drought[1]. On the other hand cultivated land area is not changing significantly but number of people fed per hectare will be almost tripled from the year 1960 to 2020 (Figure).

Global warming is not the only threat for tomorrow’s food crisis. Wealth increase causes change of patterns on consumption and rise demand for food. Crops for biofuel and non food products will need additional land. So far smallholder-farming shrinks considerably, who will fill in the lack of growing food, feed and biofuel plants?

Smallholder-farmers are going to give up farming and migrate to the cities steadily, but it has been accelerated in recent years. Additionally, some experts claiming that, lately up to 50 million “environmental refugees” will have to leave their lands due to the dramatically negative effects of climate change. (http://www.ifpri.org/blog/challenging-environmental-migration-myth). This occurs intensively in developing countries whereas the values of cultivated land in some of EU countries are doubled within one decade.

In all countries there are numbers of potential private or institutional investors, seeking a secure instrument for their own future. It is not secret that, agriculture is one of the most attractive instruments for investing. Otherwise over 200 million hectare cultivated land wouldn’t be handed over within last decade.

With the shrink of small farming communities, the amount of non-cultivated agricultural lands has been increasing. Small farming communities and unknown potential investors are the two that need to be matched for the future of our tomorrow’s food security.

European’s young potential private or institutional investors may not be aware of such alternative investment options. Thinking European successful agricultural investors in Asia, Africa and L. America and their role of being a school for local producers, we have to reactivate this for tomorrow’s food as well. So later, local farmers with gained experience guaranty the further agricultural production.

Let’s go through an example: Turkish young farmers are immigrating to the cities and almost one tenth of Turkish cultivated lands are simply left and waiting for cultivation. However increasing demand for organic products is one of other opportunities for Turkey, because soils are more suitable for organic agriculture compared to EU countries. Greenhouse and hydroponic farming are applicable throughout the country and are expandable. Existing 5,5 million hectare irrigable area will be 8,5 hectare in future. The export value of agricultural products is over $ 17 billion, but on the other hand, Turkey is importing almost $14 billion agricultural goods. Just only in the year 2010 the import of some fruit like walnut and almond was almost $270 million. Just in the year 2010 import of some fruit like walnut and almond was almost 270 million $US, as if their cultivation is not possible almost in every corner in Turkey. Many alternatives of existing production systems are promising further competitive investments like dwarf apple orchards, vineyard etc. Production of new culture plants from subtopic like kiwi and avocado seems to be quite promising. Such products have been accepted by local consumers rapidly number of foreign investors has been doubled within last few years in fishing sector. New regulations for ethanol and biodiesel from local agricultural products will facilitate new production area, like MISCANTUS[2]. Animal husbandry needs reforms to compete with the world market, but with family farms it doesn’t seems financially realistic due to not being able to reach to optimum herd size.

More or less every developing economy is in the same situation. Some of EU countries farming system are not differing either. There are numbers of impressive investment area in land, waiting investors to food production. We should support farming with all economic, social and scientific aspects to keep it for sustainable food production. To achieve this target we should increase public awareness.

Nazimi Açıkgöz

During the last 15 years, world-transgenic (GMO) soy production has reached 80 million hectares which currently represents 80% of total acreage. The graph on the right shows the annual production figures. In 2012 in Brazil, the United States and Argentina total GMO soybean ratio were 88%, 92% and 100% respectively. These developments certainly make access to GMO-free soybean and soy additives difficult. The real problem is the difficulty in the producers’ access to conventional soybean seeds due to the various problems the non-GMO soy seed sector is experiencing especially in Brazil, the USA and Argentina. In fact, soybean seed is autogam (self pollinated) seeds can be used for many years as production material.  But herbicide resistant GM soy (Roundup ready) growers, have to sign a contract, guaranteeing that they will not replant the seed second time in coming years. Why do the conventional seed users buy seed from seed companies? Because not every farm is equipped to handle seed cleaning, spraying and the packing needs/

Now let’s take a look at the situation of non-GMO seed companies:

• Their numbers are reducing, because they have been acquired by large biotech seed companies;
• Soybean breeders are not improving new non-GMO varieties due to narrowing market. From 2005 to 2010, the number of GMO-free varieties has decreased by 67% whereas number of GMO varieties increased 7% in the United States;
• Preventing from contamination of non-GMO seeds with conventional seeds need an extra effort and expense.

Indeed, non-GMO soybean producers have many advantages like cheaper seed maintenance and receiving premium for their crop. The 10% of the price difference between the two product categories in 2006 reached to 25 % in favor of non-GMO in recent years with increasing soybean prices. GM soy price in the world markets was £400/MT, where non-GMO crop was £500/MT recently. However, prices in 2006 were around £160.

Despite of their lower crop price, why do farmers prefer expensive transgenic seeds? Because:

• Disease and drought-resistant varieties are providing stable yield;
• As transgenic soybean cultivation was not allowed in Brazil before 2003, the seed was being smuggled from Argentina. This means that producers were aware of the pluses of transgenic varieties;
• Non-GMO soy cultivation needs harbicide application for both narrow and broad-leaved weeds, whereas during transgenic cultivation only one roundup spray solves the problem and reduces prime cost, time and labor;
• GMO varieties are enabling the producers two-crop harvest within one year.

In traditional soybean cultivation, farmers plows the soil particularly for weed control before planting, whereas transgenic soybean cultivation with no-till method[1] doesn’t need any soil preparations, so that the farmers are able to save time, money and labor. Being able to sow one week earlier, facilitate farmers to grow second crop within one year.  In S. America million of hectare land is now performing double cropping after transgenics are in the market. What about weed control?  Because of herbicide-resistant soybean varieties are on the field, only one application of special weed killer (Roundup) solves the weed problem.  Saving soil preparation and only one herbicide application cause cost reduction and that is the main reason why farmers prefer transgenic.

All of these developments are reflected in the low-cost GMO soy market and many companies are headed to cheaper feed for their livestock production and become transgenic soy importer. At the end, increased GMO-free soy prices caused troubles within organic livestock production sector, especially poultry and pork subsector of EU. Now they are looking for alternative sources.

To increase the numbers of classic soy varieties, seed industry has taken serious steps forward. In fact EMBRAPA (Brazilian Agricultural Research Organization) has launched a comprehensive breeding program for new GMO-free soy cultivars along with several other groups to provide greater competitiveness to the production chain. Similar attempt comes from a multinational biotechnology and seed company[2] to breed non-GMO edible lines with better taste and flavor soybean varieties.

Supplying of non transgenic seeds is not only a problem for soybean. Sugar beet farmers in USA had to accept the decisions of sugar factories, who decided to sow only transgenic seeds. Another variety development story was observed for corn. In the year 2005 number of non-GMO hybrids was 3226.  This number dropped in 2010 to 1062, whereas in the same period transgenic hybrid number increased.

Back to GMO-free soy seed issue, variety protection limits, namely seed patent for GMO soy (Roundup Ready Soybeans) will expire in different years, in different countries. It is, for example for Canada 2012, for USA 2013 etc. So far GMO seed won’t be so expensive and reducing the total cost of soybean production will reduced, more and more farmers will grow GM soybean. Now some questions arise:

• · Will “GMO-free SOYBEAN PRODUCTION” stop in soybean exporter countries?
• Would it be possible to grow other protein-rich fodder plants in Europe to replace the soybean imports?
• · The main producing countries Italy, France, Austria, Romania and Hungary harvest every year nearly one million tons of soybeans, just three percent of European imports. Would it be possible to increase the acreage and production?

Nazimi Açıkgöz

Developments in recent years in environment, biodiversity, nutritional values of foods and climate change lead EU to rethink on food safety and security and they have been found strategically important. Actually a sector with €750 billion turnover annually (just value of crops grown in the EU is €205 billion) and 48 million employees deserves such an attempt, especially in a harsh competition condition of the new agri-food market. Therefore European Commission is adopting a package of measures to strengthen the enforcement of health and safety standards for the whole agri-food chain (more detail).   Commission’s main objective is preparation of landmark package to modernize simplify and strengthen EU’s food issue with a slogan “Smarter rules for safer food”.

It is expected that, world will need 50%-70% more food by 2050. The main reasons are global warming, increasing population and much more daily calories due to raising welfare. But population

increase is causing dramatic fall in agricultural areas per person.  Currently cultivated landis 1.38 billion hectares and unfortunately this is unfortunately not easy expanded. Opositly it might shirink due to soil erosion, eutrophication, salinisation, built-up land (cities and infrastructures) etc. In 1960’s cultivated land per person was 0.45 hectare (Ha, 4500 m²), whereas it did decrease to 0.24 Ha in 2010’s. It is expected that his share will drop to 0.18 Ha in 2050’s.

Institutions or individuals, responsible for tomorrow’s food strategies, need to be informed precisely and scientifically. Some serious reports claim, that feeding of 9.6 billion inhabitants won’t be easy in 2050’s. One of the main obstacles seems to be changing habit of food consumption. Estimation of expected yearly consumption per year per person of every basic food staff would be useful guide for not only future planners, food strategists, but also for researchers and investors.

The question “how will we make up the gap?” is not answered easily. Will yield increase per unit area be a solution? Don’t we need to increase or decrease cultivation area some of basic crops? Here, agriculture strategists are obliged to know the expectation, which products at what quantity or in which ratio will be consumed in future. To this question, answers are in reports of the FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) World Food Programme (WFP), the World Resources Institute (WRI) and numerous other international organizations such as the CGIAR ect (Literature). Some figures, taken from the mentioned reports are arranged in the table on top.  Means of the annual per capita consumption values (kg) of main products in 2005, 2006 and 2007 are in the second column and 2050’s expected values are in the third column. In the other columns are given kg differences and percentage respectively. ​​Estimated ratios in last column are remarkable and their interpretations are quite useful for all of us. Based on these figures, it is understood which products will be more consumed in future. According to these data we can give priority to different food resources for research, investment and production in future.

-From the bottom line of the table can be recognized that, the annual per capita kilocalories rise from 2772 to 3070 (%11);

-Cereal consumption per person per year seems to be unchangeable. But wheat-rice consumption transition in some countries needs to be considered. In some countries rising rice consumption trends are remarkable, like China and Turkey;

-Sugar consumption will increase to 25 kg from 22 kg. But some international food and agricultural organizations are reporting that, sugar beet, as a cultivated plant is the only one, which’s cultivation area won’t increase in future;

-%15 increasing consumption of legumes[1] proves that reporters of the data in the table are assuming that all consumers become conscious on healthy diet!

-The maximum increase of per person consumption has been observed for plant oil. This ratio (%33) is very important especially due to biofuel issue. But it is very considerable especially for plant oil importer countries;

-Increasing consumption of meat and dairy products were already indisputable.

According to these estimated details politicians, bureaucrats, scientists should rethink for tomorrow’s biyoekonomik research programs. With the intense pressure of climate change expectation, we have to give a priority to plant breading for drought, heat, cold, lodging etc. tolerant genotypes of basic crops. Some communities have already started with adaptation studies of preferential crops in new ecologies. For instance EU has financed legume adaptation research project to develop the use of legumes in cropping systems to improve the economic and environmental performance of European agriculture.  USA has already improved numbers of drought resistant corn genotypes.

Future food dilemma forced many countries to rearrangement of their national agricultural research systems. BRIC countries are typical example in this respect. Brazil did already establish its EMPRAPA (Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural Research) for national research activity. Bringing together Federal and State experiment station, Universities and private sector, Brazil is now second after USA in agricultural biotechnology (Literature). India’s recently established ICAR (The Indian Council of Agricultural Research) with 99 institutes, 69 Agricultural Universities and 636 experiment station one of the largest national agricultural research systems in the world (Literature).  How about developing countries? Couldn’t they combine all manpower, infrastructure, genetic material and money into one research system? Why university’s research armies not incorporate in to agricultural research system?  We can not to take into consideration that global warming is going to double plant breeder’s jobs (organic variety developments are still waiting!). Because “GENOTYPE * ENVIRONMENT” interaction will gain more importance with climate change.

Nazimi Açıkgöz

A recent article (literature) mentions that by 2050, the per capita daily calorie consumption will increase 11% as a result of increased wealth. Also per capita food consumption of some food categories might increase dramatically:  14% for sugar, 15% for legumes, 33% for vegetable oil, and 26% for meat, % 19 for milk and dairy products. On the other hand no such increase is expected for cereals. National and international

researchers as well as investment strategists are surely starting to warn policy makers of these changes. The article also draws attention to the disorganized structure of the agricultural research institutions and recommends the collection of these institutions under one umbrella.

How were we able to feed the doubled world population from 1960 to 2010, despite no major changes incultivated agricultural land?  Above graphic explains the phenomena (Graphic): Improved crop varieties with agronomic innovations performed three to four folds in every corner of the world. This is a result of increased agricultural research and development investments of the public and the private sector.

Can we apply the same successful efforts to meet the 70%[1] increase in food production that will be needed in the 2050s? According to a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) report, we can. Research suggests that we can produce more than expected consumption if we sophisticated research and development studies in all agricultural ecologies and ensure the results are leveraged by farmers. There are a number of ways to expand the agricultural production facilities:

1. 1. Increased productivity by investment in R&D. Breeding new crop varieties which are adaptable to every existing ecology and various conditions with heat, drought, biotic (disease-pests) and abiotic (salinity, heat, cold, drought etc.) resistance, improving effective use of nitrogen varieties;
2. 2. Application of research results to every agronomic production option, such as no-till, precision agriculture and second crop application which would aim to ensure the efficient use of existing or possible resources  conducted for every production area;
3. 3. Increased investment in irrigation techniques, including water conservation, the most effective way to use limited water resources to determine the systems, like drip and sprinkler irrigation.

A simulation study has been conducted using these techniques for the three basic crops (corn, rice and wheat) and some of the results are summarized below (table).

Simply using nitrogen-efficient varieties might increase rice yield 20%. Heat-tolerant varieties boost corn yield %16 adding other alternatives like new genotypes that are resistant to diseases and pests can help achieve the 70% increase needed.

A number of the mentioned technologies have already been implemented. For example Argentina gets second crop (soybean after wheat) in its cropland over million hectares by using the “no-till” method in conjunction with biotech varieties, Such applications are need heavy R&D in every soil. Their significance stands out especially due to climate changes. However the very first thing needed is public (and political) awareness of an effective agricultural system. Unfortunately not all countries unite their manpower and financial infrastructure together like the BRIC[2] countries. Brazil has already established its EMPRAPA (Brazilian Enterprise for Agricultural Research) for all future national research activities by bringing together their federal and state experiment stations, including universities; Brazil is now the second country after the USA in agricultural biotechnology. India’s recently established ICAR (The Indian Council of Agricultural Research) with 99 institutes, 69 Agricultural Universities and 636 experiment stations is one of the largest national agricultural research systems in the world (Literature). Here are too many other countries following suit!

Nazimi Acıkgoz

Malnutrition is defined as undernutrition, micro-nutrient deficiency and overweight. Unfortunately, it causes high economic and social costs to society in almost every country.  According to FAO’s latest estimates, 12.5 percent (868 million people) of the global population is undernourished. Still, 26 percent of the world’s children have child growth retardation (stunting); 2 billion people suffer from one or several micro-nutrient deficiencies. On the other hand, 1.4 billion people are overweight, including the 500 million who classify as obese. All these nutritional disorders, with more than one form, can be found in every country. A small table has been arranged with a few samples to clarify the importance of nutritional disorders in the world (see Table). Some countries are suffering terribly from child stunting (an indicator of undernutrition), whereas others struggle with iodine deficiency or anemia (often caused by iron deficiency, increases the risk of women dying in childbirth). Iron is an essential metal micronutrient for human health; its deficiency in the human diet contributes to high rates of mortality in developing countries. More than 125 million children under five years of age suffer from vitamin A deficiency (VAD) in the world. More than half of the children who lose their sight because of VAD die within a year. The above table shows how high the VAD is in developing countries. Iodine is another essential, a non-metal micronutrient for human health (its deficiency impairs thyroid functions). When severe deficiency occurs, fetal development can be affected with consequent irreversible brain damage and mental retardation. Interestingly, iodine deficiency seems to be an overlooked issue in the developed world.

Malnutrition may affect economic development by limiting productivity and human capital accumulation. The decline in productivity beyond the social cost of malnutrition and treatment expenditures is equal to 5% of the annual world gross national product (GNP) 3.5 trillion US$ (equal to 500 US$ per capita). The full breakdown of the amount in question has been estimated in 2010 as 1.4 trillion US$ globally, which includes the risk factors of overweight and obesity.

Studies show that reduction of such malnutrition disorders is economically possible. Research results from Ethiopia, India and Nigeria show that every US$1 invested in reducing child stunting generates between $12 and $34 in economic returns[1].

To reduce the cost involved and to provide better nutrition food systems, the solution begins with agriculture. It is, beyond being a source of livelihood, a source for food production. Therefore agriculture is the most significant sector to minimize eating disorders. Bio-fortification is possible in every stage ranging from production, processing, storage, and transport to marketing. So beside the pharmaceutical and food industries, agriculture could also serve to enrich food in some cases, with the insertion of micro-nutrient genes into regarded plant genomes and it would be affordable, especially in developing countries. Actually, the lack of trace elements had been covered by currently commercialized new genotypes in a few food sources, like fatty acid omega-3 enriched rapeseed, antioxidant enriched likopen tomato and folic acid increased lettuce.

The importance of the subject brought the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization and the CGIAR (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research) together as the top organizations on this issue, to step up to a more serious level of cooperation in 2004. Starting an international program, namely the “HarvestPlus Challenge”, they have begun with classical plant breeding and transferred genes into the most consumed local plants which did not contain enough vitamins or micronutrients. New genotypes were able to store vitamin or micro-elements in plant leaves, roots and seeds. Let’s take a look at some of the newly commercialized cultivars in some countries:

• In 2011, vitamin A-enriched cassava varieties in the Congo;
• In 2012, iron-enriched bean varieties in the Congo;
• In 2012, vitamin A-enriched maize varieties in Zambia;
• In 2012, iron-enriched maize varieties in India;
• In 2007, agricultural vitamin A-enriched sweet potato varieties in Uganda and Mozambique;
• In 2013, zinc-enriched rice in India and Bangladesh;
• In 2013, zinc-enriched wheat cultivars in India and Pakistan.

Not every plant has a donor genotype to be enriched with the above mentioned items. So to enrich the rice plants with vitamin A, biotechnology stepped in. The globally recognized GOLDEN RICE project was started in1999. The different forms of Golden Rice contain between 1.6 and 35 µg β-carotene per gram of rice. A recent study with children has shown that the bio-availability of pro-vitamin A from Golden Rice is as effective as pure β-carotene in oil, and far better than spinach in providing vitamin A to children. A daily intake of 60 g of rice (half a cup) would provide about 60 per cent of the Chinese Recommended Nutrient Intake of vitamin A for 6–8-year-old children and be sufficient to prevent vitamin A malnutrition[2]. But it has been blocked by some GOLDEN RICE opponent group, so it has not yet reached to farmers’ field. Economic evaluation of such delay has been estimated with a mathematical model by two scientists (Wesseler J. And D. Zilberman 2014)[3] in a peer reviewed article (The economic power of the Golden Rice opposition) and come to a remarkable conclusion: “Despite Golden Rice being available since early 2000, this rice has not been introduced in any other country. Governments must recognize additional costs that over-compensate the benefits of the technology to explain the delay in approval… The model has been applied to the case of India. Results show the annual perceived costs have to be at least US$199 million per year approximately for the last decade to explain the delay in approval of the technology. This is an indicator of the economic power of the opposition towards Golden Rice resulting in about 1.4 million life years lost over the past decade in India”.

Agriculture can create more than we, the global population receives today. Not only is this true with routine food, but also in terms of bio-fortified products that the global population will need in the future. We have to improve agricultural research strategies to create more sustainable production systems. Orienting existing manpower to agricultural research and giving political priority to agricultural research should be considered an important issue for policymakers.

Nazimi Açıkgöz

Natural disasters may restrict available economic resources, which are critical for the society. For example decrease in agricultural production as a result of drought in a given country would not only limit access to food but would also result in extreme imbalance in income distribution. In such cases, the social balance of a nation may even be disrupted by inevitable consequences such as black market activity, smuggling and looting s. In the most extreme cases, such as the current Syrican conflict, all of this might event result in undesirable events like political, even military interventions.
Recently “National Academy of Sciences” (NAS) has published a report titled: “Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought”. The publication is based on a survey of the relationship between climate change and the Syrian conflict. According to the report, during the periods of 1988-1993, 1998-2000 and 2005-2010, millions of farmers have migrated to urban regions due to the drought. This not only caused numbers of farmers reduction, but also led to an increase in the number of unemployed peasants in the cities. The social movement followed and resulted in the conflict of 2011 as the poor had more and more challenges accessing food due to continuous decline in agricultural production. The end result is 11 million internally displaced Syrians, 3.9 million of which are outside the country borders (Turkey-1.9 million, Lebanon-1.2 million, Jordan-0.6 million, etc.). Before the crisis, Syria had a healthy middle-income population. Currently half of the country’s population is living below the hunger threshold.
The NAS report is not the only publication drawing attention to the role of climate change on the Syrian conflict. A paper from Pacific Institute” (Oakland, California) titled “Water, Drought, Climate Change, and Conflict in Syria” reports the following: “The devastating civil war that began in Syria in March 2011 is the result of complex interrelated factors. The focus of the conflict is regime change, but the triggers include a broad set of religious and sociopolitical factors, the erosion of the economic health of the country, a wave of political reform sweeping over the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Levant region and challenges associated with climate variability and change and the availability and use of freshwater”.
At first sight, we may assume that the Syrian Civil War started as a political uprising in the context of the violent protests for democracy, during the Arab Spring. Causes for discontent included a poor economic environment, political corruption, and human rights violations. However as the above mentioned NAS study concludes the anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change was a major contributing factor in setting the stage for civil unrest.
Historically Syria sits in a geographic belt that is relatively moist and fertile, as “Fertile Crescent” describes. However during the 2005-2010 periods, country was hit by multiyear drought. The above NAS graph shows the annual temperatures and long-term climate trends in Syria. As the red line indicates, how the annual temperature increased from 14.5 C0 in 1900 to 15.5 C0 in 2000.
NAS’s report notes that a 2013 analysis of 60 different studies concludes that climate change was linked to conflict over a large span of time periods and geography. The report also predicts a not-so-bright future for Syria from a climate standpoint.
Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan may also face an even more tenuous security situation in the coming decades. Actually Syrian’s agricultural production in 2014 was lover than 30% last two years.
The coauthor of the report, Dr. Kelley, a researcher at the University of California, indicates that the mismanagement of water sources was a cause of the recent droughts. Other contributing factors were not following aquifer (ground water) and not controlling the changes of plant patterns (from regular plants to more water needing cotton). A number of other administrations, like Saudi Arabia, took measures to improve water management to plan for the dangers of water shortage. In 2013 the Saudi Arabia government announced that starting from 2016; wheat production will not be allowed in the country .
The authors do not argue that global warming and drought are the only root causes for the Syrian crisis. However, they believe global warming is a critical contributing factor, in fact, probably the number one contributing factor to the situation.
Global warming is indeed a critical factor to consider especially in regions where climate projections are alarming. Countries in these regions should prioritize irrigation infrastructure investments. Improving new heat and drought tolerant varieties could be one of the most effective solutions in minimizing the negative effects of global warming.
Nazimi Acikgoz
Note: This analysis is a summary from a Turkish report (https://nazimiacikgoz.wordpress.com)

Brazil, Russia, India and China (“BRIC” countries) did not attain a prominent economic performance until 2000’s. However, they have made great strides in economic development in the first decade of 21. century. In fact %40 of the world GDP’s increase belongs to BRIC countries during 2011 and 2012, whereas G7’s share of the mentioned increase were only %30.

Their interests on the fundamental world problems are also well known. For example, collaborating with South Africa and Indonesia, they have organized “the International Climate Change and Food Security Conference” (ICCCFS) in November 6-8, 2011 in Beijing (China) and presented its final declaration in “Climate Change Framework Program Meeting” (UNFCCC) in Durban (South Africa). In the mentioned years, G7’s interest on climate change was not very remarkable. Moreover Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto agreement encounter to this years.

Sprit of the formation of the G20 economies is to collaborate with the fast growing, tomorrow’s potentially rich countries, on decisions about the future problems of the world. As can be seen from the graph, the BRIC countries have moved up in the world economic list, during the mentioned years. China, for example moved from sixth position to second, Brazil from ninth to seventh, India and Russia came from lower positions to the ninth and eleventh respectively. We can relate the mentioned improvements to different economic sectors for each country, however the main sector would be Agricultural. For example, Brazil’s agricultural export volume grew fivefold from 2001 to 2011 and reached to $80 billion from $16 Billion.

The major role of agrobiotechnologies in agriculture and export performance for some of these countries is outstanding. Let us have look at the details for each country:

BRAZIL: In 2014 global biotech crop field size worldwide has reached to 181 million hectares, where 42 million hectares belongs to Brazil only. It is second after USA (73 million hectares). Ironically, Brazil has been officially banned growing GMO crops until 2003, so for years GM seeds from Argentina or Paraguay were smuggled into Brazil. It is expected that the acreage gap with the US will be closed in the near future. Brazil grew transgenic soybean, maize, cotton currently, but has in the pipeline many candidate crops waiting for approval on sugar cane, beans, papaya, potato and some forest trees. It is remarkable that “EMBRAPA, Brazil’s agricultural R&D organization that has gained approval to commercialize its home-bread biotech virus resistant bean, planning to market it in 2016. A herbicide tolerant soybean which has been developed in a public-private partnership with BASF, is also waiting for an EU import approval to be commercialized in 2016 ”.

CHINA: Plant science has gained lately remarkable attraction but this country is number one in the world on investing public money to plant research. Especially biotechnological studies have brought commercial results and China has cultivated 4 million hectare (2014, % 93 of national production) transgenic home-breed cotton. Political decision of this country is quite unique: The whole GM seeds must be produced by Chinese companies . Several domestic companies were able to commercialize food related GM crops like poplars, papayas with virus resistance, tomatoes and sweet peppers. in 2014 Ministry of Agriculture issued safety certificates for two national products, which are not commercialized yet. First one is Bt rice with resistance to insect pests and second one is enriched with phytase maize, which should improve the feed rating and reduce especially the environmental impacts of manure. This country is also number one in the world importing GMO corn and soy.

INDIA: This country has started cultivating Bt cotton in 2003 and growing area reached to 11.6 million hectares in 2014, representing 93% of all cotton production. With Growing Bt cotton, India became a cotton exporting country, being a importing on before. Since 2006 India is now second biggest cotton producer after China, producing 21% of world cotton.

Because Bt cotton growing carried on with hybrid (higher yield!) technique, growers have enormously benefited. While non-transgenic cotton were requiring 5.9 g of pesticides for the production of 1 kg of cotton, less than 0.9 g of pesticides have been used for the production of 1 kg of Bt cotton. Interestingly the number of cases of pesticide poisoning has also decreased by %88, because Bt cotton farmers spray less frequently. According to a report “Indian Bt cotton farmers spend %31 to %52 less on insecticides and achieve a 34 % to %42 higher cotton yield per ha than farmers who cultivate traditional cotton. Although the total production cost price of Bt cotton is 15 % higher than that of non-Bt cotton, the income of Bt cotton farmers is %53 to %71 higher”. Despite enormous biotechnological investment, India did not commercialize any other Bt crop due to existing old biotechnological regulations.

RUSSIA: Remarkable this county was quite irrelevant to biotechnology until recently. But lately government has implemented a “COMPLEX PROGRAMME of BIOTECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT IN RUSSIA TO 2020″ with a budget of 1.18 trillion rubles to benefit of biotechnologies advantages . The main objective of the program could be summarized as following: “- Russia to take leading position in biotechnology and to create globally competitive sector of bioeconomy which should be technology the basis for modernizing Russian economy along with nanotechnology and information. The money will be spent on the development of priority fields of biotechnology. Thus bioenergy sector will need 367 billion rubles, industrial biotechnology – 210 billion rubles, agricultural and food biotechnology – 200 billion rubles, biomedicine – 150 billion rubles, biopharmaceuticals – 106 billion rubles, marine biotechnology – 70 million rubles, forest biotechnology – 45 billion rubles, and environmental biotechnology – 30 billion rubles”.

It’s obvious that BRIC countries have greatly benefited from agrobiotechnologies which was based on GMO technique. Considering climate change and food security, plant biotechnology seems to be one of the promising alternatives to overcome world hunger risk. Recent scientific progresses have enabled the breeders to edit gens, so genetic modification could be carried on without any foreign gen transfer. This new plant breeding methods with gen-editing, like ‘CRISPR’ or ODM (oligonucleotide directed mutagenesis) which has brought already new commercially variety to the market in USA and Canada, are cheap and very suitable; especially for SME breeding companies. Now raises a question: Should those new techniques (without any foreign gene) regulated like GMO’s or not? If yes, regulatory cost of any new candidate genotype will be $ millions and will need more than ten years for be commercialized. Many countries in America Continent have decided that new breeding techniques should be considered as non GMO. And EC is going to decide on new plant breeding techniques within three months. Hope, no one country won’t overlook agrobiotechnologies, especially after discovery of the new plant breeding methods. Some of BRIC countries have already announced sophisticated biotechnological projects like India (http://m.thehindubusinessline.com/news/science/ govt-launches-national-biotechnology-programme/article8045706.ece) and Russia (http://www.bsbanet.org/tk/ news/files/Biotechnology-development-programme-2020-Russia-tk.php#unique-entry-id-4)
Nazimi Acikgoz
1: http://isaaa.org/resources/publications/briefs/49/executivesummary/default.asp
2: http://www.transgen.de/aktuell/2535.gruene-gentechnik-china.htmlile
3: http://www.vib.be/en/about-vib/plant-biotech-news/Documents/BackgroundReport_BT_Cotton.pdf
4: http://blog.milliyet.com.tr/biyoteknolojide-rusya-nin-akli-basina-yeni-geldi–/Blog/?BlogNo=361643

Reweaving the support systems of world seed business in one paper , I found attitude of some EU countries quite interesting. In 1980’s, they have decided to support firstly those seed companies, working autogam plants, for 25 years. The state which provides credit, scientific consultancy, expert, infrastructure and hardware support in the legal arrangements, especially the tax, has contributed greatly to the formation of the companies those days. As one of the most prominent sector of agriculture, seed business had found different support in each country.

In spring 2014, the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development requested an economic document on “EU Seed and Plant Production Material Market: Companies and Market Shares” from “Policy Department B: Structural and Cohesion Policies European Parliament”. And a report comes out with Guillaume RAGONNAUD’s signature.

According the report, as of 2012, the world seed sector has an economic value of US $ 57 billion. US $ 45 billion is reflected in the trade (US $ 12 billion is the seed of the farmer’s own product). 27% of trade related amount belongs to US, 22% to China and 20% to the EU.

The world seed market grew by 76% from the year 2005 to 2012, while the growth in the EU seed sector remained at 45%. In the figure, growth of domestic seed markets (DSM) of leading European countries for the mentioned period are compered and has been observed that Spain and Holland experienced the largest increase above 100% whereas the UK shows a 20% contraction. German and Italian seed market lag behind the world average (76%) with only 13% and 14% growth.

EU seed companies have larger distribution measured in company size, number of workers and number of employees, product variety and seed production areas. About 3% of the 7,000 firms are outside Europe. The numbers of employees in the sector are nearly 50.000, of which 10.000 are foreign.

According to an EU-wide study, plant breeding innovations in Europe over the past 15 years have resulted in various benefits for food production, economic growth, environmental protection etc.

The study, entitled “The economic, social and environmental value of plant breeding in the European Union” based on a report of the “European Technology Platform Plants for the Future” and finds:

• Higher yields: plant breeding has contributed around 74% of total productivity growth since 2000, a yield increase equivalent to 1.24% per year;
• Economic growth: genetic improvement has added more than €14 billion to the EU’s GDP, including €8 billion to the agricultural economy;
• Improved farm incomes: 1.2 million farm workers in Europe earn €7,000 more per year;
• Increased food supply: improved crop varieties have produced extra calories to feed up to 200 million more people;
• Biodiversity and habitats: Without plant breeding innovation in the EU an additional 19 million ha of farmland would be needed to maintain crop production levels;
• Reduced GHG emissions: Plant breeding advances have supported a 3.4 billion tone reduction in CO2 emissions over the past 15 years.

The chief executive of the British Society of Plant Breeders Ltd, Dr. Penny Maplestone, makes some interesting observations:
“This study is the first of its kind to quantify the contribution of European plant breeding innovation, not only in supporting the productivity, efficiency and competitiveness of EU crop production, but also in securing wider policy objectives on issues such as food security, climate change and biodiversity preservation. But future innovation in EU plant breeding cannot be taken for granted, and will depend on continued public sector investment in relevant plant science research and an effective framework of IP protection, as well as a supportive regulatory environment.”
“On key issues such as GMOs and novel breeding techniques, for example, EU decision-making has become highly politicized and unpredictable. The findings of this study should serve as a wake-up call to Europe’s policy-makers that fostering a science-based and enabling regulatory environment for plant breeding is an important investment for the economy, the environment and our future food security.”

Unlikely seed markets in the rest of the world, the EU market is focusing to conventional seed market (i.e. non-GM). Despite leading seed expert opinions around the importance of biotechnologies as the key driver in the global seed industry, the EU seems to be ignoring the rapid increase in transgenic plantations in the world, which has reached to 185 million hectares, representing 13% of words crop area.

Negative approach of EU towards transgenes has brought numbers of alternation in seed sector. For example some units of few companies have mowed outside of the EU. Many EU seed companies have formed partnerships with international biotechnology firms. On the other hand, in the year 2016 four EU countries namely Spain, Portugal, Czechia and Slovakia have planted 150,000 hectares of transgenic corn. Actually EU countries are importing yearly 30 million ton GMO soybean. And still EU regulations are against genetic engineered crops. Interpretation of these contradicting facts seems to be quite uneasy for man-in-the-street

It has been estimated that, world seed market will reach US$113.28 Billion by 2022, including farmer saved seed. In 2016, the estimated global market value of biotech crops was US$15.8 billion, representing 35% of the US$45 billion global commercial seed market. The world seed market has increased three folds from 1985 to today. In the last five years, the transgenic market increased by 22% whiles the conventional seed market by only 5%. For countries looking to get a piece of the future seed market, it seems rejecting GMO would make their chances much slimmer.

Nazimi Açıkgöz

The economic sizes of countries are evaluated using parameters such as annual growth, inflation, unemployment, exchange rate, interest rate, and budget balance and population movements. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) criterion is used as an economic indicator for countries. Instead of GDP, the “purchasing power parity (PPP)” has been put into use for economic rankings of countries. This criterion is the expression of the purchasing power of the country’s income which removes the price differential effects between the countries. In this case, cross-country rankings of Turkey for 2017, will be evaluated, instead of GDP (793.698 billion US $), with PPP (US $ 2082.079 billion US $.

The Guardian has prepared a graph-charts (see the figure), based on the World Bank, IMF and PwC data. The first three columns, namely the first block, rank the economy according to the year 2009 of the top 20 countries. In the last three columns in the second block, ranking belong to the estimates of the same countries for the year 2050.

The way in which the sequences of the countries in the two blocks change, can be easily interpreted by following the directions of the green and pink lines between the two blocks. For example, countries like USA, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain all; (the pink lines) went down to lower levels in the second block in the year of 2050. In contrast, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey and Indonesia are placed in much higher order in in the second block. In this case, it could be assumed that, the G7 will be represented not by the rich western countries, but by the new countries, such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and Mexico, which are predominantly developing countries of today.

Considering the general characteristics of the countries, which are raising their rank to the top; population growth, increases in physical and human capital and the use of science and advanced technologies are clearly visible. Undoubtedly, every country tries to do its utmost to develop in all sectors. Some countries, however, focus on specific sectors and are stripped away. Let’s take a look at performances of BRIC countries (Brazil, China, India and Russia) for agricultural sector (https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/03/07/ future-crop-biotechnology-brazil-china-bric-nations/):

BRAZIL: This country, which raised her agricultural exports from US $ 17 billion in 2001 to $ 97 billion in 2011, reaps the fruits of technological and research agenda. Curiously, by combining public, university and private sectors under a single roof (EMPRAPA), Brazil has made great strides in agriculture with a law that they dictate in time. Acidic saviors have gone through the path of soil rehabilitation, where they have used the African meadow grass “brachiaria” as genetic material to obtain highly efficient varieties for their own meadow pasture. So slaughtering weight of cattles, have been reduced from four year to 20 months. With the new cattle herds bred from the Indian “zebra” race, Brasilia becomes a world leader in red meat markets.

As the first country of transgenic varieties developer after the US, it cultivates transgenic soya, maize and cotton. Further, using agriculture biotechnology intensively, many commercial plants like sugar cane, beans, papaya, potatoes and some species of trees are in the field trials, which is the last phase to registration for commercial cultivation.

CHINA: China, which has made the most public investment in agricultural research in the world, has achieved results in agricultural biotechnology in 2004 and has introduced its own transgenic cotton varieties. The private sector is also about commercializing biotech poplar, papaya, tomato, pepper varieties. The developed transgenic rice variety, resistant to insect damage was registered also in the USA in 2018.

INDIA: this country granted approval for transgenic cotton cultivation in 2003. Following year 93% of 11.6 million hectares were planted with biotech varieties. Thus, while the yield was increased by 34-42%, insecticide costs were reduced by 50% and farmer deaths from spraying in the cotton field decreased by 88%.

RUSSIA: This country is a late comer in biotechnology. Lately Putin signed a package, which will be implemented in two phases in 2012-2015 and 2016-2020. The main objective of a 1.18 trillion rubles program is benefiting from the advantages of biotechnology, which is important in the world.

Numbers of countries like Turkey have banned their farmers to benefit from this value-added improvement of agricultural biotechnology. Turkey imports the products (for feed industry) of other countries and supporting their farmers as it was in the colonial times. This prohibition has resulted in scientific researches, so effective that, in this country “the leaves are not moving” in agricultural biotechnology. However, the Pakistani government has genuinely ordered an international company a “GEN” for the development of transgenic varieties for all its own seed companies freely.

Some countries, such as Spain, Italy and South Korea couldn’t maintain their 2009’s place in 2050’s rank. It is obvious that, the rank prediction for 2050’s based on the present-day data. The reason might be that, they are still unable to prove their economic breakthrough in order to ensure technological improvements with sufficient innovation for 2050’predictions.That does not mean they will not make enough progress in the next decades. It is expected that, in order to increase the annual development rate every country, will do its utmost to improve all its capabilities.
Nazimi Acikgoz

Note: This article is summarized from an analyze, published at https://nazimiacikgoz.wordpress.com.

All economic activities related to research, development, production, trade and consumption of plants, animals and all other living things are defined as “bioeconomy”. Scientifically bioeconomy aims at producing economical gains by generating surplus values using new methods such as biotechnology with the targeted profits of improved health, increased productivity and higher quality in agricultural and industrial production and sustainable improvements in the environment. If these activities are oriented towards agriculture and forestry are understood as GREEN, if oriented to industry as WHITE, if oriented to ocean and seas as BLUE bioeconomy. Bioeconomy is a very young concept and has begun to be used since 1990. In recent years, both the EU and the US have announced their bioeconomical plans for the future. In February 2012, the EU has announced its plan for “Sustainable Bioeconomy for Europe”, whereas US confirmed his “National Bioeconomics” project two months later. In those plans, the main target was oriented to R-D and innovations in biology. While EU is focusing to WHITE bioeconomy, the US’s plan was embracing all three types of bioeconomy.

A report of “International Food Policy Research Institute” (IFPRI), is dealing with an interesting question: of “how much agricultural production should increase towards 2050”. The report said that, the amount of today’s food should be increased by 70%. It is estimated that, the mentioned addition should be 80% for meat and 52% for grain. This means that today 260 million tons of world meat production will have to be increased to 455 million tons in 2050.

On the other hand, while the negative contribution of agriculture to the environment is expressed, the question of animal husbandry stands out. For example, while for a kilogram of vegetables 322 liters water, for a kilogram of fruit 962 liters water consumed, for a kilogram of chicken 4325 liters, for a kilogram of sheep 8763 liters, and for kilograms of beef 8763 liters water were necessary. It is important to note that, one third of the cereal produced in the world is directed to feeding animals. It cannot be said that, besides large amounts of water consumption, animal breeding is considered to be innocent of the contamination water, mixing of pathogens, metals, drug-hormone residues to water is not new. Another fact is that 80% of the antibiotics used in the US are used in animal husbandry.

80% of the agricultural land in the world is meadow – pasture. Apart from this, approximately 30% of the cultivated plant production is used for animal feeding. In case of greenhouse gas, animal breeding is responsible for 6-32%, according to different estimates.

When it comes to 2013, scientists have begun to show that meat can be produced in laboratories. Not satisfied with this, however, it has moved to commercial dimensions (Maastricht University, Netherlands, Prof. Mark Post, (company: Mosa Meat)). In the USA, companies founded in this area are commercially supported by renowned investors such as Bill Gates and Richard Bronson, as well as food giants such as Memphis Meats, Cargill, Tyson Food. It is a fact that EU companies like Nestle and Unilever will not miss this opportunity. The German PHW group has already started to purchase the Israeli new entrepreneur “Supermeat”. It seems to be moving beyond chickens and beef. “FinlessFoods” aims to utilize cell culture to artificially produce meat from the endangered red tuna species on land.

In fact, meat is mainly the composition of muscle and fat cells. They need nutrients suitable for growth and development. When we will carry out this system in the laboratory or even in larger environments, we will have healthier and safer meat, which is without antibiotics, without medicine, without drugs. These artificial products are similar to those, mentioned above because of their potential to overcome environmental negativity, cheapness, benefits to human health and protection of animal welfare. However It may take quite a while to get to the market. Although “Memphis Meats” calls “we are in the market in 2021”, it is a reality that many scientific problems are yet to be solved. At this time, another US firm “Justforall” announces that chicken meat without broiler will be on the market shelves towards the end of 2018 .

The vegetarian menu already offered by IMPOSSIBLE Burger in about 1500 restaurant in the US is not likely to be underestimated. As a meat substitute, it is interesting that the product of which the vegetable protein tissues are active, offers an equivalent flavor to the meat. The company supplies the meat color with leghemoglobin, derived from soybean roots, not from the blood. However, the plant herbal hemoglobin is low in the soybean roots, so it will be obtained from a yeast strain (Pichia pastoris) . These yeast strains of genetically modified products and are not subject to biotechnological legislation in the United States or in the EU.

In the 1900s, while a chick could only be marketed in 112 days, now it has been reduced to 45 days. Let’s see what the bioeconomy will deliver in future to us. Or will it do so? As far as the economic dimension of the event is concerned, the US lobbies (Cattlemen’s Association!) has already taken action to ban the plant-derived clean meat . Let’s not forget the success of the coal lobby in the US’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Treaty.
Nazimi Açıkgöz
Note: This article is summarized from a paper published in the daily Turkish newspaper: Milliyet
(http://blog.milliyet.com.tr/biyoekonomide-hayvancilik-ve-et-odak-noktasi/blog/?blogno=588064)

http://www.transgen.de/aktuell/2700.fleisch-vegan-zellkultur-biotechnologie.html
http://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/387804-meat-lobby-wants-USDA-to-ban-clean-meat-makers-from-calling-their-products-me

It is imperative that we improve the new genotypes for sustainable plant and livestock production given the changes in demand and the environment. Until recently mutations and classical breeding techniques were sufficient to breed new varieties. At the end of the 20th century, tissue culture, gene transfer and other molecular biologic developments have entered the picture. In the past decade, a variation on mutation, which is not a new technique, has emerged. We now see thousands of new plant varieties that have been bread using artificial mutation with X or gamma rays or colchicine application. Mutation is a spontaneous or purposeful changes in one of the genes of a living organism.

Since 2010, genomic arrangements have been carried out in molecular laboratories. These genotypes, will rapidly be registered and delivered to the producers. These genomic arrangements, (also called New Plant Breeding Techniques (NPBT)), GEN EDITING, GENOM EDITING) cover a range of new gene engineering methods. Those are “Tilling, Protoplast Fusion, Cisgenesis, Oligonucleotide Techniques, CRISPR-Cas9, Zen, Talen, Epigenetics etc. with “CRISPR-Cas9” being prominent than the rest. In these methods, there is no transfer of any gene from outside like there is in GMOs. On the contrary, new genotypes are created by silencing the target gene with the help of transient DNA-cutting enzymes. This application can increase or decrease the effect of gene. We can call this process artificial micro-mutation. Naturally, these methods can be applied to plants with mapped genes.

What interesting are these methods do not require hundreds of millions of dollars for registration as is the case with GMO, which requires a lot of expenses for environment, risk etc. analyzes. Therefore, any gen edited variety can reach the seed marked in faster than any other plant breeding technique. Additionally the cost of these techniques is only one-tenth of GMO processes resulting in easy variety development by small and medium-sized or low budget new enterprise plant breeding companies, universities and public institutions. In the USA, GENOM EDITING is regulated as a conventional plant breeding system and not as a GMO registration system. Of the 23 candidate varieties of the more recent registration applications, only three of them belonged to large, global seed companies. Twenty of them emerged from 5-6 year old, small-to-mid sized enterprises or new entrepreneurs. Improving new genotypes will not be in hands of multinational companies exclusively but small enterprises will also take part in plant breeding activities which is crucial for food security in light of climate change.

Application of these new plant breeding techniques has been banned in in Europe . It raises concern that such a ban has occurred at a time when, where global warming, heat, drought and diseases, are seriously threatening the world’s food safety and when nations are in desperate need of resistance or tolerant new cultivars to heat, drought and diseases. With the July 2018 decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), genome editing will be regulated like GMOs, and the cost of registration of any new variety will be as high as GMO’s (around 150 million US$). In this case, small and medium-sized or low budget and younger plant breeding companies or universities will not be able to enter into plant breeding business. So, according to EU law, on one hand, ‘conventional’ mutagenesis using ionizing radiation or DNA-damaging chemicals which generate thousands of mutant varieties are safe; but on the other, one laboratory change of genome is causing regulatory alarm. Upon these developments some experts have voiced their views including:
 “This decision will have a profound effect on the academic research community in the EU”;
 ”Europe is breaking away from the largest biology revolution of the last 30 years;
 ”Europe will be far behind in the next decade about innovations in food and agriculture;
 “It is expected that modern plant biotechnology laboratories will be closed in Europe;
 “These restrictions in biotechnology means “migration of scientists””;
 “With this decision, the EU will begin to decline for the latest technology and innovation”.

The scientific community’s concern is that research support will also be cut off. The fact that NPBT won’t be included in the “Horizon” type framework projects, which bring together the science bodies and the implementing firms, will be a barrier for EU firms in the tomorrow’s seed market.
However, Japan’s Ministry of Environment is approaching this issue very differently. At an experts meeting on August 20, 2018, Japan has decided: “unless the product contains nucleic acid of other species or variety, registration procedures do not fall into the category of GMOs”. And on August 29, 2018, it was accepted by the Advisory Panel on Genetically Modified Organisms as it came from the group of experts .

Let’s take a look at the economic contributions of the varieties developed by classical mutation breeding without mentioning the varieties developed with NPBT. With this method, which was introduced in the middle of the 20th century, 3275 new varieties have been presented to the world producers to date. New mutant varieties were used as parents in the development of a large number of varieties. For example, in Italy, new genotypes driven from mutant Capelli durum wheat were planted in half of the whole Italian durum wheat fields in the 1970s. China is using mutation breeding more effectively. 30% of the registered 3275 new world mutant varieties belong to China. This country also uses space for conventional mutation. A total of 230 mutant varieties have been registered via space breeding research center’s mutation projects in the last 30 years.

Here are a few examples of candidate cultivar lists developed with NPBT:
– Seedless tomatoes in Japan;
– Low fatty acid soy in the US (in market in 2019);
– Easier digestible alfalfa in the US;
– Herbicide resistant rice in Canada;
– Herbicide resistant flax in Canada;
– A dozen more gene-edited crops in the pipeline for as US Company, Calyxt, including high-fiber wheat and potatoes that stay fresh longer, better-tasting tomatoes, low-gluten wheat, apples that don’t turn brown, drought-resistant soybeans or potatoes better suited for cold storage.

Those will not only be beneficial to plant breeders and consumers, but will also be pioneers for further crop development. In fact, we should see new cultivars for many additional species for food security in the future, given global warming.

Nazimi Acikgoz
Note: This artical is a summary of a Turkish paper published in “https://nazimiacikgoz.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/dunyada-yeni-islah-teknikleri-meyvelerini-vermege-basladi-2/” and
“http://blog.milliyet.com.tr/dunyada-yeni-islah-teknikleri-meyvelerini-vermege-basladi/Blog/?BlogNo=594118”