ABSTRACT
As the global population continues to grow, the amount of arable land decreases, and climate change leads to less-favorable production conditions, humanity will face new food-security challenges (Glover et al. 2010, Godfray et al. 2010). The Green Revolution of the 1930s–1960s modernized agriculture, resulting in high-yielding varieties of cereals that saved hundreds of millions of people from starvation (Woodward et al. 2009). However, one in eight people (842 million) still suffer from chronic hunger (FAO 2013), grain-yield improvement in major annual crops has slowed (Godfray et al. 2010), and most of the land suitable for production is in use and suffering from degradation (Pimentel 2006, Monfreda et al. 2008). While food insecurity is a multidimensional issue, the development of new and improved crops optimized for alternative sustainable farming practices could address many of those components and is urgently needed.
