marker-assisted selection in wheat - ictsd

456Marker-assisted selection – Current status and future perspectives in crops, livestock, forestry and fishknow that investments in staff and infrastructurefor the “molecular component”of MAS are wasted if they are not linked tothe “breeding and selection” components.Apart from countries with technologicallyadvanced NARES (Type 1 and Type2 described by Byerlee and Fischer, 2001),getting all of the above elements together isa big task for the vast majority of developingcountries, particularly against the backgroundof current and often deterioratinglevels of public funding for agriculturalR&D (Pardey et al., 2006). So big indeedthat, while recognizing the need/opportunitiesfor molecular MAS, they mayconsider, in the first instance, other veryvaluable applications of molecular-basedtechniques such as the polymerase chainreaction (PCR) for plant, livestock and fishdisease diagnosis (see, for example, Viljoen,Nel and Crowther, 2005), estimating geneticdistances between varieties, strains, linesand breeds, conducting variety and parentagetesting (De Vicente, 2004; Chapters14 and 17) and for GMO characterizationand detection. These applications are notconsidered further here since they fall outsidethe core subject matter of this book.Also, while recognizing the increasing roleof the private sector, the options describedbelow for pursuing MAS are based on theassumption that the public sector will continueto be the major investor in R&Dfor small-scale producers and increasingthe access of poorer sections of society toaffordable food and agricultural products.Additional options are available throughpublic–private partnerships and these arediscussed later.A final consideration is that, unlike thedevelopment and release of GMOs, MASdoes not require the establishment andthe enforcement of a specific legislativeframework. Apart from avoiding the needfor specific capacities in public administration,this certainly reduces the finalcosts of adopting MAS-derived varietiesand breeds.Priority setting for MASTargeting the farming systems, speciesand traits linked most to poverty andhungerInvesting in MAS has to be based on strikingan appropriate balance between needs andopportunities for combating hunger andpoverty through genetic enhancement.Essential to that process is determiningwhere the greatest concentration of povertyand hunger exists and the causal factors.There are essentially four approaches forpursuing this.• Poverty and hunger mappingAlthough still relatively new, this approachis gaining increasing acceptance in nationaland international development circles. Oneof the major challenges faced by all countriesin targeting their development, andhence research efforts, towards the foodinsecure and poor lies in the diversity oftheir farming systems and socio-economicconditions. However, using a combinationof survey and census information(e.g. household surveys), administrativedata (e.g. markets, roads), geographicalinformation systems (GIS) and small areaestimation maps, it is becoming increasinglypossible to develop correlations andmaps that link population densities, welfaredata and crop and livestock production andlivelihood systems; in effect, to pinpointwhere poor people live and the productionand livelihood systems associated with highlevels of poverty.Increasingly, through programmes suchas the Inter-Agency Programme on FoodInsecurity and Vulnerability Information