<P> The semi-arid tropics, ranging from parts of North and South Africa, Asia especially in the South Pacific, all the way to Australia are notorious for being both economically destitute and agriculturally difficult to cultivate and farm effectively . Barriers include everything from lack of rainfall and diseases, to economic isolation and environmental irresponsibility . There is a large interest in the continued efforts, of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRSAT) to improve staple foods . some mandated crops of ICRISAT include the groundnut, pigeonpea, chickpea, sorghum and pearl millet, which are the main staple foods for nearly one billion people in the semi-arid tropics . As part of the ICRISAT efforts, some wild plant breeds are being used to transfer genes to cultivated crops by interspecific hybridization involving modern methods of embryo rescue and tissue culture . One example of early success has been work to combat the very detrimental peanut clump virus . Transgenetic plants containing the coat protein gene for resistance against peanut clump virus have already been produced successfully . Another region threatened by food security are the Pacific Island Countries, which are disproportionally faced with the negative effects of climate change . The Pacific Islands are largely made up of a chain of small bodies of land, which obviously limits the amount of geographical area in which to farm . This leaves the region with only two viable options 1 .) increase agricultural production or 2 .) increase food importation . The latter of course runs into the issues of availability and economic feasibility, leaving only the first option as a viable means to solve the region's food crisis . It is much easier to misuse the limited resources remaining, as compared with solving the problem at its' core . </P> <P> Work has also has been focusing on improving domestic crops through the use of crop wild relatives . The amount and depth of genetic material available in crop wild relatives is larger than originally believed, and the range of plants involved, both wild and domestic, is ever expanding . Through the use of new biotechnological tools such as genome editing, cisgenesis / intragenesis, the transfer of genes between crossable donor species including hybrids, and other omic approaches . </P> <P> Wild plants can be hybridized with crop plants to form perennial crops from annuals, increase yield, growth rate, and resistance to outside pressures like disease and drought . It is important to remember that these changes take significant lengths of time to achieve, sometimes even decades . However, the outcome can be extremly successful as is the case with a hybrid grass variant known as Kernza . Over the course of nearly three decades, work was done on an attempted hybridization between an already domesticated grass strain, and several of its wild relatives . The domesticated strain as was more uniform in its orientation, but the wild strains were larger and propagated faster . The resulting Kernza crop has traits from both progenitors: uniform orientation and a linearly vertical root system from the domesticated crop, along with increased size and rate of propagation from the wild relatives . </P> <P> Several species of fungi have been domesticated for use directly as food, or in fermentation to produce foods and drugs . The white button mushroom Agaricus bisporus is widely grown for food . The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been used for thousands of years to ferment beer and wine, and to leaven bread . Mould fungi including Penicillium are used to mature cheeses and other dairy products, as well as to make drugs such as antibiotics . </P>

When did domestication of plants and animals began