ABSTRACT
M.L.E. Reed1,* and Bernard R. Glick2
1 Monsanto Canada Inc., 810-180 Kent Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1P 0B6. 2 Department of Biology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3G1. * Correspondence author: lucy.reed@monsanto.com
The world’s population currently includes around 7 billion people and is expected to increase to approximately 8 billion some time around the year 2020. As a direct consequence of increases in both environmental damage and worldwide population pressure, global food production will need to become more effi cient to feed all of the world’s people. Thus, it is essential that agricultural productivity be signifi cantly increased within the next few decades. Motivated by increasing demand, and by the awareness of the environmental and human health damage that can occur as a consequence of overuse of pesticides and fertilizers, agricultural practice is moving to a more sustainable and environmentally favourable approach. This includes both the increasing use of transgenic plants (e.g., https://www.isaaa.org/ inbrief/default.asp) and plant growth-promoting bacteria (Reed and Glick 2004) as a part of mainstream agricultural practice.
