6 ms·

I completely agree. I work in plant sciences (as a bioinformatician) but my background is in econ, pol sci, and stats. Unless things have changed since I switch

I completely agree. I work in plant sciences (as a bioinformatician) but my background is in econ, pol sci, and stats. Unless things have changed since I switched fields, most global food security problems are market related. There's more than enough food, and we're really good at getting it all around the globe quickly. Also, huge amounts of food are lost due to post-harvest losses. I'd bet a beer that in terms of absolute food weight to mouths, post-harvest research may have higher benefit/cost ratio than photosynthesis research. Evolution has been pretty damn good at getting photosynthesis as efficient as possible (read R. Ford Denison's Book Darwinian Agriculture for this point argued well). Having experience in both fields, I don't work in plant genomics because I want to feed more people (I do, but if that's what solely motivated me I'd be working under economics still). I do it because genetics is awesome, and plants are great to study. But, I'd argue that the hard sciences are always a good worth investing in. Being capable of trying to understand our world with the scientific method is something that is uniquely human. We should use this talent as much as possible. Drosophila (fruit fly) genetics is a great example. Decades ago, drosophila was chosen because it was cheap to grow in a lab and had a short generation time. Yet through drosophila we've learned so much about genetics, development, and evolution in ways that are just unparalleled. Yet Sarah Palin[1] and others attack it as a silly waste of money. If we'd have limited drosophila research decades ago because we didn't think an organism with a ~700 million year split with humans would be useful for us, where would be? Much stupider, and much worse off. Basic science matters, big time. [1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCXqKEs68Xk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCXqKEs68Xk

Blahah 13y ago
Evolution has been good at getting photosynthesis as efficient as possible in the most extreme cases. In rice and all other C3 plants, it could be at least 50% more efficient in the majority of field situations. That's what we work on. Projected yield improvements are on the order of 50%. Absolutely agree about the importance of post-harvest problem-solving, but I disagree about the benefit/cost ratio. There are a few key things in photosynthesis which, if achieved (which won't cost that much), could have massive benefits. In post-harvest research there are many small, localised problems that change over time. It's a less tractable, but extremely important, set of problems.

Blahah 13y ago

Evolution has been good at getting photosynthesis as efficient as possible in the most extreme cases. In rice and all other C3 plants, it could be at least 50% more efficient in the majority of field situations. That's what we work on. Projected yield improvements are on the order of 50%. Absolutely agree about the importance of post-harvest problem-solving, but I disagree about the benefit/cost ratio. There are a few key things in photosynthesis which, if achieved (which won't cost that much), could have massive benefits. In post-harvest research there are many small, localised problems that change over time. It's a less tractable, but extremely important, set of problems.