Catalyzing Holistic Agriculture Innovation Through Industrial Biotechnology

摘要

For over two decades our industrial biotechnology innovation community (IBIC) has been focused on developing and nurturing agriculturally based bioin-dustries (ABBs). IBIC is not the first to champion the expanded role of agriculture as a provider of feedstocks for energy, chemicals, and materials for human development. Humans have always relied on plant and animal resources to meet their needs whether it be food, clothing, shelter, oils, waxes, dyes, resins and polymers.1 The ancient trade routes of the tenth through sixteenth centuries expanded and globalized the trade in agricultural commodities and the movement of genetic materials around the world.2,3 This global trade in plants provided the underpinning for agricultural development that we have seen over the past five centuries and has provided the world with many possibilities for meeting humans' food, fiber, energy and material needs. In the US, the Farm Chemurgic Council was formed in the 1930s to promote the use of plant-based material for the production of renewable materials.4 The oil embargos of 1973 and 1979 created demand for alternative sources of transportation fuels, and once again we looked to agriculture to provide the carbon feedstocks that could be transformed into ethanol, biodiesel and other fuels. As we continue into the 21st century, we are still asking agriculture to provide raw materials for sustainable human development, and we are emboldened to pursue this challenge because of the continued scientific and technological breakthroughs.