COVER FEATURE
INGENIEUR
COVER FEATURE
INGENIEUR
Keeping Up With Agriculture Technology
By Majidah Hashim
I
wonder how many of us have actually seen an original banana ? They are nothing like the soft , yellow , seedless fruit we enjoy today . In fact , as one of the oldest fruits known to humankind , the banana has gone through quite a drastic evolution , mostly human-made .
Very little of the original banana could be eaten . The fruit pods were filled with cavities that held bullet-like seeds surrounded by hard pulp . Through several generations of cross-breeding and genetic modification , we have created the yellow banana that we all recognise today .
THE SUPER BANANA
All modern bananas that we have today are Cavendish bananas . And while there are a variety of them , they are all of a similar banana species . How similar ? I mean exactly and precisely similar , as in , they all share the same DNA and scientists view them as essentially clones of each other .
Genetically engineering bananas has not only made them more edible to humans , but we can now grow a lot of them and they have been strengthened against many banana diseases ( though because they are all clones , it would now take just one disease to wipe out the entire species ).
Of course , we did not stop at bananas . From corn to potatoes to papayas , the moment humans started to adopt a more agrarian lifestyle , we have been on a mission to produce with abundance . We have been able to delay the softening of ripe tomatoes , allowing them to have a longer shelf life . We have created special rice variants with increased beta-carotene ( vitamin A ). Countless crops have been made more pest-resistant , enabling farmers to use less pesticide . We have made some crops grow faster , enabling farmers to have more harvest rotations in a year . We have even been able to make our crops weatherresistant , allowing them to thrive in drought and increased precipitation .
It all comes down to making these crops a more viable part of the human food chain .
While there are a number of on-going health and ethical concerns about genetic modification of food , it is clear that without it we would not be able to feed this planet ’ s growing population .
Labs all over the world are continuing with breakthroughs that include engineering lab-grown meats . Increasing numbers of blind taste tests have shown that lab-grown meats are becoming indistinguishable from animal meats . We can certainly expect these products to appear on our supermarket shelves in the near future .
ENTER THE ROBOTS
I think that the agriculture sector has witnessed some of the most exciting feats of engineering in the last few decades , maybe even more than most other sectors . Let ’ s just say we have come a long way since our dependence on water buffaloes . Agriculture today has become quite a science .
Not only can we genetically engineer the seeds , we can now control every single aspect of the seed ’ s life . The seeds can be germinated in a climate-controlled environment , where weaker shoots are immediately discarded and only the strongest seedlings are prepared for cultivation . The land is ploughed by machines , achieving in one afternoon what would have taken humans ( and water buffaloes ) weeks to do .
Even sowing the seedlings into the ground can be done with precision using machines . Throughout the growth of our little plants , more robots and drones can be deployed for anything from measuring the moisture in the soil to fertilising , weeding , pruning , and eventually , harvesting . In some places , satellites are used
34 VOL 99 JULY - SEPTEMBER 2024