technologies, to improve energy conversion in crop and livestock systems and reduce agrochemical dependency as well as to increase the shelf life of agricultural prod­ucts with reduced refrigeration.
•     Improved design for energy efficiency in farm machin­ery and equipment.
•     Development  of energy  efficient  protected  cropping buildings and animal housing, including heating and refrigeration systems.
•     Improved methods for recovery and reuse of residues and wastes as  "resources"—including fertilizer, heat and power from farm wastes and other off farm waste (such as biosolids).
•     Re-development     of     indigenous,     energy     saving technologies.
•     Improved understanding among consumers of excessive energy costs of "out of season" vegetables, in order to modify purchasing behavior.
•     Development of whole supply chain energy auditing and reporting systems, including energy labeling, to in­form consumers and policy makers.
•     Design of suitable policy instruments to promote energy efficiency in food and fiber supply chains.

6.2.6.5 Reducing pressure on natural resources through the ecological footprint method
The ecological footprint is a method for comparing the sus-tainability of resource use—mainly energy—among differ­ent populations (Rees, 1992). The ecological footprint was defined in terms of land area needed to meet the consump­tion of a population and absorb all their wastes (Wack-ernagel and Rees, 1995). Although the concept has been subjected to considerable criticism, recent advances include input-output analysis (Bicknell et al., 1998; Hubacek and Giljum, 2003), land condition indicators and land distur­bance analysis (Lenzen and Murray, 2001). These advances have  enabled calculation  and comparison  of ecological footprints across widely divergent scales, from countries to families and categorization of the ecological footprint into commodities, production layers and structural paths. Such analyses provide detailed information on which to base policy decisions for reducing pressure on energy consump­tion of different types of populations (Lenzen and Murray, 2003).

6.2.7 Developing innovative crops and livestock food and farming systems
AKST could be mobilized at the farm level for developing innovative crop and livestock farming systems by breeding plants and animals with high quality performance both from environmental and production perspectives and breeding of underutilized species. AKST could also contribute to the de­velopment of innovative modes of production and evaluat­ing of diversity. These new systems could facilitate better interactions among crops or livestock, production methods and the environment.

6.2.7.1   The potential of genetics and biotechnology for crops and livestock breeding
Breeding has the potential to be a key element to contribute to the realization of development and sustainability goals,

both in the areas of food security and safety and to contrib­ute to environmental sustainability (FAO, 2004; Plants for the future, 2005; FABRE, 2006). It would be appropriate to tightly bind breeding with crop or animal system man­agement and with the local environment. The potential of AKST to support breeding activities is enormous—due to the recent progress in genetics especially in molecular ge­netics and genomics whose continuation is important—and offers new possibilities for breeding methods that could be better explored. Also, these future innovations raise new concerns in terms of possible wider effects and unforesee­able consequences (Boxes 6-7 and 6-8), calling for new ways of assessment and follow up.
     Considering basic knowledge, a huge effort has been invested in the last 20 years to explore the structure and functions of the genomes of several living organisms. It en­hanced knowledge in genome sequencing, of gene structure, expression and function and in genome structures (physi­cal  maps,  duplications  of chromosomes  fragments  and deletions, mobile element invasiveness; comparative genom­ics, etc.) through a more systematic and industrialized ap­proach of the cell/tissue products (transcripts, proteins and metabolites).
     Much previous research had been based on an under­standing of genetics that has assumed "a direct path from gene to protein and to function as well as the presence of pre­set responses to external perturbations" (Aebersold, 2005). While it led to the accumulation of large amounts of detailed knowledge that constitutes an important data investment, its limitations have also become apparent: little is known about how cells integrate signals generated by different receptors into a physiological response and few biological systems have produced a consistent set of data that allows the gen­eration of mathematical models that simulate the dynamic behavior of the system. Some of the priorities for research to help better understand these processes could be to:
•     Maintain the effort in genomics data acquisition to accumulate knowledge in structure and functions of specific genes and particularly those the expression of which may contribute to development and sustainabil­ity goals (FAO, 2004; Plants for the Future, 2005; FA­BRE, 2006);
•     Strengthen the efforts of basic physiology through func­tional genomics and systems biology that continue to break through the major limitations inherent in previous approaches (Minorsky, 2003). This requires enormous sets of data as well as a sophisticated data infrastructure with a high level mathematical framework (Minorsky, 2003; Wiley, 2006). These efforts will also lead to a bet­ter understanding of the interactions between the meta­bolic pathways and of their role in the expression and the regulation of specific traits;
•     Explore further the role of epigenetic mechanisms (DNA methylation, histone acetylation, RNA interference) in the regulatory framework of specific gene sets (Grandt-Dowton and Dickinson, 2005, 2006);
•     Increase the understanding of mechanisms of reproduc­tive biology and regulation of ontogenesis that allows elaboration of methods of rapid multiplication of ap­propriate  genotypes  (cloning,  apomixis,  etc.)   (FAO, 2004b; FABRE, 2006);