TRAILBLAZER
As global warming raises the spectre of food scarcity , we look to the ingenuity of scientists like Dr . Pamela Ronald for hope
Loathsome as it is to deploy trite literary cliches , forgive me this one : it is impossible to overstate the importance of rice for humanity . A cereal grain , it is the staple food for over half of the world ’ s population ( especially in Asia and Africa ) and , in providing one-fifth of the cumulative caloric intake for human beings , is indisputably the single most significant food crop we have ever cultivated . Cultures flourish , empires rise and fall , thanks to the stuff .
There is one catch , though : it must grow in water , thus those artfully irrigated fields in which the farmer toils , legs submerged to knee height . And , conversely , this means that the cultivation of rice – that crop upon which so many of us depend – is highly susceptible to being ruined by flooding . Nutritional disaster ensues .
This makes the work and accomplishments of Dr . Pamela Ronald of near unfathomable consequence . She is a Plant Pathologist and Geneticist , currently working as a Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and
Genome Center at the University of California , Davis , and is a member of the Innovative Genomics Institute at UC Berkeley .
Her great accomplishment – achieved with colleagues David Mackill and Kenong Xu – was the pinpointing and isolation of Sub1A , a submergencetolerant gene in the rice genome that allows the rice plant to withstand flooding while still producing a high-yield crop after flood waters recedes .
Her story is one of those quintessentially American ones : her father was a Holocaust survivor who , after 12 years of being “ stateless ” and roaming in search of an education , would eventually settle in Northern California . It was in this region of outstanding beauty that Ronald ’ s mother introduced her to the wonders of nature , instilling in her an appreciation for native ecosystems and the importance of conserving pristine wilderness . It was while exploring this wilderness that she first encountered botanists ( who were identifying wildflowers ), realising that she could make a profession out of studying plants .
20 April 2023