Coping Strategies for Drought in Developing Countries - Essay Example

These strategies include;- According to Bhattacharyya, (2004, p.5), market-assisted selection has been successfully used in terms of agriculture for several years. By involvingselection of a trait that measured with accuracy to establish a linkage with certain specific molecular markers and choosing the kind of specific markers required for use in genotyping, the perfect type of crop is produced. Studies have shown that timing of drought has a significant effect on the yield and rain fed conditions in semi-arid tropic areas.

Moreover, Bhattacharyya, (2004, p.5) noted that, division of drought in regard to time (flowering, pre-flowering and terminal drought), including its effects on the yield of components, highlights complexity of breeding in crops that are crop resistance. Plant technology has a good track-record of providing farmers with benefits in developing countries. In reference to Leary (2008, p.154), even though most current genetically modified crops are developed by private in most industrialized countries, 90% of the farmers who use them are actually in the developing countries.

Genetically modified crops have increased tolerance to abiotic strains, where genes that are responsible for the osmotic adjustment have been successfully introduced to sorghum especially in India. Similar work has also been initiated on green gram and black gram (Merriman (1993, p.106).the process of genetic mutation is like in the following diagram: Another option of introducing drought tolerance is the use of tissue culture and wide crossing methods, for example cross roughing the tolerant pearl millet crop with another high yielding species of a cereal crop with an aim of creating new drought tolerant and high-yielding hybrid species.

According to studies conducted by (Jamal2007, p.24), there has been a major success in a similar strategy that involves creating a new rye/wheat hybrid species of triticale.Mutation breeding is