Application of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture

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Application of Nuclear Techniquesin Food and
Agriculture

• Joint FAO/IAEA Programme of
• Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture

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Corporate Mission
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• Our Goals

• Food Security

• Food Safety

• Sustainable Agriculture

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Application in Food and Agriculture
Insect Pest Control by Sterile Insect Techniques
Plant Breeding Genetics by Mutation
Techniques
Animal Production Health by RIA, ELISA, PCR,
etc.
Food Environmental Protection by Food
Irradiation and Radio- analytical Techniques
Soil Water Management Crop Nutrition by
Isotopic and Nuclear Techniques
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1. Crop improvement by mutation techniques
Technical basis

• Variation is the source of evolution
• Spontaneous mutation rate is 110-8 110-5
• Radiation can cause genetic changes in living
  organisms and increase mutation rate up to 110-5
  110-2
• Induced mutation is useful for crop improvement
• Induced mutants are not GMOs, as there is no
  introduction of foreign hereditary material into
  induced mutants

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Crop improvement by mutation techniques
negative mutation
Mutant cultivars

• Higher yielding
• Disease-resistance
• Well-adapted
• Better nutrition

no mutation
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Mutation techniques
- Improving crop cultivars
- Enhancing biodiversity
- Increasing farmers income
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Crop improvement by mutation techniques
MUTANT VARIETIES
(2006)
Total Number 2672
Plant Species 170
Sources FAO/IAEA Mutant Varieties Database
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The impact of mutation induction in crop
improvement is measured in millions of ha and
billions of
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VND95-20 High quality Tolerance to salinity Key
rice variety for export National Prize of
Science and Technology of Viet Nam 2005 for its
significant socio-economic contribution
VND99-3 High quality for export Short duration
(100 days) 3 rice harvests per year in the
Mekong Delta
8 new high quality rice mutant varieties have
been developed and adopted by farmers in Vietnam,
where rice export is one of their main revenues.
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2. Soil-Water-Crop Nutrition Management
Isotopic and nuclear techniques
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2. Soil-Water-Crop Nutrition Management
Technical basis

• Both stable and radioactive isotopes can be used
  as tracers in soil and water management crop
  nutrition.
• Isotopes are atoms with
• the same chemical properties, but different
  atomic weight (mass number).
• the same number of protons but different
  neutrons.
• different mass number (atomic weight).
• Isotopes can be either stable or radioactive
• stable isotopes different masses (18O and 16O).
• radioactive isotopes radioactive decay (32P).

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2. Soil-Water-Crop Nutrition Management
14N
32P
31P
13CO2
31P
12CO2
14N
15N
32P
31P
16O
13CO2
18O
12CO2
18O
16O
13C
12C
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2. Soil-Water-Crop Nutrition Management

• Enhance the efficient and sustainable use of
  soil-water-nutrient resources.
• Quantify Biological Nitrogen Fixation.
• Minimize effects of soil erosion and degradation.
• Enhance water use efficiency by crops.
• Select drought and salt-tolerant crops.
• Evaluate effects of crop residue incorporation on
  soil stabilization and fertility enhancement.
• Track and quantify off-site water (nutrients)
  losses beyond the plant rooting zone.

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2. Soil-Water-Crop Nutrition Management
Plants can be grouped according to 13C
discrimination
C4 plants d 13C -12
12CO2 (99)
13CO2 (1)
(maize, sorghum, sugarcane, some tropical herbs)
(rice, wheat, forest, vegetation)
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2. Soil-Water-Crop Nutrition Management
FRN with precipitation (P)
Resulting soil level
Erosion site 137Cs lt P
Original soil level
Deposition site 137Cs gt P
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2. Soil-Water-Crop Nutrition Management
Using isotopic and nuclear techniques, Agency
supported studies show that

• Soil conservation measures improved land
  productivity and reduced soil erosion rates by
  55-90 in Chile, China, Morocco, Romania and
  Vietnam.
• Improved yield and revenue by 25-50 while
  reduced water use by the same extent in Chile,
  Jordan, Syria and Uzbekistan.
• 10-15 increase in P utilization efficiency in
  Mexico and Burkina Faso.
• 30 increase in BNF through improved soil and
  crop management practices and genotype selection
  in Asia and Africa.

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3. Insect Pest Control by SIT
Technical basis

• Radiation is used to induce lethal mutations in
  chromosomes of insect pests to cause sterility.
• Sterile males are released into the wild where
  they compete with wild males for matings with
  wild females.
• SIT relies on
• mass production of the target pest
• sterilization and shipment
• inundative releases mostly by air
• matings result in no offspring
• SIT integrated with other pest control methods is
  applied for suppression, containment, or even
  eradication.

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3. Insect Pest Control by SIT
Sterile
Gamma Radiation
Sterile
No Offspring
(BIRTH CONTROL)
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Integrated Pest Management With SIT Component
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Major Achievements
SIT developed and transferred to over 30 Member
States with substantial socio-economic impact

• In Chile, fruit and vegetable exports have
  climbed to US 1.6 billion in 2005 as a result of
  fruit fly-free status.
• Medfly-free status in Mexico translates to annual
  savings of US 2 billion in reduced crop losses
  and pesticide costs, and access to export
  markets.
• In Zanzibar, eradication of tsetse and
  trypanosomiasis resulted in very significant
  increases of meat and milk production, as well as
  crop productivity

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Exports of bell peppers and tomatoes from
Central America to the USA (2004-2006)
Overcoming phytosanitary trade barriers to
facilitate access of high-value crops to
lucrative export markets
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TSETSE ERADICATION PROJECT ETHIOPIA (2000 2006)
Block-1
60 reduction in disease prevalence
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4. Animal Production Health
Technical basis

• RIA is used to measure the presence of the
  reproductive hormone progesterone through
  immunological definition
• Isotope I-125 is used as a label to enable the
  immunological reaction to be assayed
• Disease diagnosis using molecular tools
  (PCR-ELISA)
• DNA assisted selection for productivity and
  disease resistance
• Production of safe standard reagents by
  irradiation
• Evaluation of locally available feeds to overcome
  nutritional deficiencies

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DNA-Assisted Selection
4. Animal Production Health
Sample DNA (blood, hair, milk)
Identify superior genes
Measure productivity
Develop nuclear-related test for selection and
breeding
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Efficient Utilization of Locally Grown Feeds
4. Animal Production Health
Local plant materials
Feed to livestock
Tissue sampling to assay isotope distribution
Label with isotope e.g. 15N, 13C18
Nutrients dispersed throughout body
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Use of isotope related techniques in disease
management
Is this cow vaccinated?
Take blood
Run ELISA
Vaccinate
Protected
Analyze the result
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Reducing Health Risks
through the early, rapid and sensitive
serological and molecular detection (such as
ELISA and PCR)
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4. Animal Production Health
Major Achievements

• Diagnostic technologies developed and transferred
  to more then 70 Member States
• Rinderpest, Brucellosis, FMD, CBPP, Newcastle
  Disease, Trypanosomiasis
• Network for DNA analysis established in Asia
• Diagnostic Standards available for FMD, with
  other diseases in pipeline
• Specific feeding regimes developed in more than
  30 Member States

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4. Animal Production Health

• Pan African Rinderpest Campaign
• IAEA was involved in the development and
  validation of ELISA tests, the training of
  veterinarians and equipping Member State
  laboratories
• Established diagnostic capacity
• Introduced epidemiology
• Sero-monitoring to verify vaccination coverage
• Surveillance to monitor outbreaks
• Epidemiological surveys to declare freedom of
  disease
• Rinderpest is today nearly eradicated worldwide!

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5. Food and Environmental Protection
Technical basis

• Food irradiation is the treatment of food by
  ionizing radiation
• Radiation at appropriate doses can kill harmful
  pests, bacteria, or parasites, and extend
  shelf-life of foods.
• Isotopic techniques are employed to monitor foods
  for contamination with agrochemicals
• optimizing sample preparation by radioisotopes
• detecting contaminant by electron capture
  detector

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Several energy sources can be used to irradiate
food

• Gamma Rays
• Electron Beams
• X-rays

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Food Irradiation
Codex General Standard for Irradiated Foods
OVERCOME QUARANTINE BARRIERS
ENSURE FOOD HYGIENE
MANGOS
GRAPES
SHRIMP
MEAT
FOOD SAFETY
TRADE
ORANGES
CUT FLOWERS
SPICES
CHICKEN
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Application of Food Irradiation

• More than 60 countries permit the application of
  irradiation in over 50 different foods
• An estimated 500,000 tons of food are irradiated
  annually
• About 180 Cobalt-60 irradiation facilities and a
  dozen electron beam (EB) machines are used to
  treat foods worldwide
• More and more countries accept the use of
  irradiation as a phytosanitary measure

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Atoms for Food and Agriculture
Meeting the Challenge