Source: John Innes Centre – 15 December 2021

Researchers at the John Innes Centre have applied to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for consent to conduct a field trial of genetically modified (GM) wheat.

The small-scale field trial is planned to take place within confined GM trial facilities at our field station in Bawburgh, between March and August in each year from 2022 to 2024.

The wheat trial follows research at the John Innes Centre that identified a gene, TaVIT2 which encodes for an iron transporter in wheat. This knowledge was then used to develop a wheat line in which more iron is transported into the endosperm, the part of the grain from which white flour is milled.

Source: Seed Quest – 15 December 2021

As modern biotechnology rapidly moves forward, ISAAA continues to share the latest cutting-edge biotechnologies to its network of stakeholders and beneficiaries with its most recent publication about new breeding innovations and their impact on global challenges.

Breaking Barriers with Breeding: A Primer on New Breeding Innovations for Food Security (ISAAA Brief 56) is ISAAA’s most recent addition to its Briefs series. It highlights the most available tools used in genome editing and their impact on global food security.

The primer explores new breeding innovations for plants and animals, the regulations related to them, their prospects in Africa and Southeast Asia, their potential contributions to food security, and how to effectively communicate the benefits of these innovations to different stakeholders.

Source: SA Government, Media Release – 02 December 2021

South Australia’s farmers are reaping the rewards of being able to grow GM canola with local crops currently the most valuable in the country – fetching more than $900 per tonne according to a November 2021 market report.

The latest Bayer GM Canola Market Report shows South Australian GM Canola priced at $915 per tonne compared with $840 per tonne in Victoria and $830 per tonne in the traditionally strong Western Australian market.

Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development David Basham said the strong pricing for South Australian GM canola demonstrates the importance of giving our farmers the choice on what they want to grow.

“After a 16-year Labor moratorium on Genetically Modified food crops on mainland South Australia, our farmers are reaping the benefits in our first harvest of GM Canola and safflower,” Minister Basham said.

“More than 23,000 hectares of GM canola were planted around the state this season and the latest Bayer GM Canola Market Report indicates South Australian prices are currently the best in the country at more than $900 per tonne.

“Despite the doomsday predictions of some of our political opponents, GM canola has been a real boon for South Australian farmers with not only the highest returns in Australia but with less inputs.

“This is a credit to South Australia’s world-class grains industry but it unfortunately further highlights the economic opportunities our state has missed out on by living under an archaic moratorium…

Source: SyFy – 27 November 2021

A recent study carried out by Rajeev Varshney from the Center of Excellence in Genomics and Systems Biology at the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and colleagues looked at the genome of chickpeas in hopes of finding a way to build a better food crop. Their findings were published in the journal Nature.

They didn’t just look at one kind of chickpea. Instead, the work analyzed more than 3,366 varieties of the plant — 3,171 cultivated species and 195 wild species — in order to get a full picture of genetic diversity. They created a pan-genome which describes genetic diversity across cultivated species and their wild source plants.

“It was a long journey from inception in 2014,” Varshney told SYFY WIRE. “This was the first effort of its kind across any crop. It took about three years for us to generate all of the data and then three to four years for data analysis and interpretation.”

The work, though daunting, resulted in the identification of 29,870 total genes, including 1,582 which had not been reported before. This analysis identified beneficial genes as well as detrimental mutations which result in less successful plants and lower crop yields.

That data was then delivered to the University of Queensland where it was analyzed by an artificial intelligence called FastStack, which is specialized for designing new varieties of plants and crops with an eye toward optimal output.

Source: 6PR – 23 November 2021

Invasive species such as feral cats, fire ants, rabbits and exotic plants are causing significant damage to local wildlife.

Dr Andy Shepherd, Senior Research Scientist at CSIRO, says it’s a huge issue for Australia.

The solution that CSIRO are focusing on is a genetically modified feral cat.

“We recognise there’s a huge amount of effort, particularly in WA, going on to manage cat numbers using effective bating systems, but it’s not a long term solution,” Dr Shepherd said.

“So we’re really focusing here at CSIRO is long term solutions, and what we’re trying to come up with is a genetically modified cat, that when it mates with other cats the offspring will only be male…

Source: Farm Weekly – 05 October 2021.

The University of Western Australia’s (UWA) Institute of Agriculture has collaborated with international researchers to develop a roadmap to fast-forward breeding for accelerated crop improvement and rapid delivery systems, which will lead to a food-secure world.

Two papers, recently published in Trends in Genetics and Nature Biotechnology, were the result of a Perth-based workshop organised by The UWA Institute of Agriculture and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), and attended by research institutions from Australia, India, Austria, China, Mexico and the United Kingdom…

Source: Genetic Literacy Project – 13 September 2021

A Senior Research Scientist with the Science and Technology Policy Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) says Ghana’s first genetically modified crop – the pod borer resistant cowpea (beans), will help the country deal with protein deficiency challenges among the population. 

Dr Richard Ampadu-Ameyaw believes the variety will offer the country many benefits when it is eventually approved for the benefit of farmers and consumers. “In a lot of places, being able to buy fish or meat is a challenge, so more beans will help ensure more proteins for the people,” he observed. 

“If it is well managed and well farmed, it could help a lot of people move away from poverty,” he added…

Source: Grain Central – 24 September 2021.

An international collaboration of scientists has discovered a chromosome segment from wild grass that, when transferred to wheat, can reduce nitrogen requirements while maintaining or raising the crop’s productivity and grain quality.

The wild-grass chromosome segment causes roots to secrete natural inhibitors of nitrification, offering a way to dial back on heavy fertilizer use for wheat and to reduce the crop’s nitrogen leakage into waterways and air.

The findings are outlined in a new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America…

Source: Cosmos Magazine – https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/agriculture/gm-cowpea-crop-planted-in-nigeria/

After decades of research, Nigeria’s farmers are growing a GM version of their staple legume that will help millions combat hunger and poverty. Cowpea is a hardy legume, well adapted to the dry conditions and poor soils of the tropical savannah. But while handed down the generations from farmer to farmer, it had been left behind by the breeding programs that dramatically improved the yield of staples like rice, corn or wheat.

Improving cowpea has long been the holy grail for Nigerian plant breeders.

[Article includes the vital role CSIRO scientist and ABCA’s Expert Scientific Panel Chair, Dr TJ Higgins played in the process].

Source: Queensland Country Life – https://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/7393836/gene-tech-could-end-chick-culling-and-stop-african-swine-flu-deaths/?cs=4704

Using gene technology in livestock is brimming with potential, from using warthog genes to stop African swine flu killing pigs to ending the need to cull male chicks.

For more than a decade, the cropping sector has benefited from gene technology, which has been used to make species more drought or pest resistant, or more resistant to certain pesticides.

But using the same technology in animals is still in its infancy. …That could soon change, as researchers explore the practical applications of the technology and government policy slowly shifts.

Source: Nature World News – https://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/46990/20210806/climate-change-may-have-had-an-effect-on-the-rise-of-agricultural-diseases.htm

According to a recent study, climate change will raise the burden of agricultural diseases in some areas of the world while decreasing it in others.

Crop disease effect is expected to decrease in tropical places such as Brazil, Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Southeast Asia as the globe warms.

Disease risk will increase at higher latitudes (far from the equator), with Europe and China “especially vulnerable.”

Source: Genetic Literacy Project – https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2021/08/13/biotechnology-is-key-to-meeting-uns-goal-of-zero-hunger-worldwide-by-2030/

Agricultural biotechnology is a crucial tool for transforming global food systems to meet the United Nation’s goal of ensuring zero hunger by 2030, say some scientists, academics and civil society representatives.

Evidence abounds that biotechnology has had a positive overall impact on agriculture in the areas where it has been employed, they say. If adopted more widely across the globe, it could be instrumental in meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, which aims to end world hunger, boost nutrition and support agricultural sustainability within the next nine years.

“GMO technology is working for farmers,” observed Arif Hossain, CEO of Farming Future Bangladesh. He cited the six-fold increase in income that farmers in Bangladesh have earned as a result of growing Bt eggplant, an important food crop genetically modified to resist the destructive fruit and shoot borer pest without the application of insecticides.

Source: Fresh Plaza – https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9344136/breakthrough-in-the-tests-of-the-first-transgenic-cavendish-banana-plants-with-resistance-to-fusarium/

The trials conducted by a group of researchers at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, offer promising results in the search for Cavendish banana plants resistant to Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense Tropical race 4 (TR4).

The researchers designed several lines of genetically modified Cavendish bananas with resistance to this fungus and, after a 3-year field test carried out in lands heavily infested with TR4, they concluded that a Cavendish line transformed with a gene taken from a wild banana grew completely free of TR4, while three other lines showed partial resistance.

Source: ABC Far North – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-29/genetically-modify-worms-for-us-miltary-james-cook-uni/100331756

The US government was interested in working with Professor Loukas and James Cook University to improve troops’ protection against biological and chemical weapons. It has granted the university’s Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine $US2.5 million, across five years, to create parasitic worms that can internally protect personnel through constant secretion of antibodies.

Professor Loukas says the project is at its very start, but early evidence suggests a process of genetic engineering could be possible.

Source: Fish Farmer – https://www.fishfarmermagazine.com/news/aquabounty-announces-new-site-for-gmo-salmon/

US-based GMO salmon farmer AquaBounty has selected an appropriately named venue for its first full scale site – Pioneer, Ohio.AquaBounty’s AquAdvantage fish are the first GMO (genetically modified organism) salmon in commercial production.

The new farm represents an important milestone for the company. It will be AquaBounty’s first large-scale commercial facility, with a planned annual production capacity of 10,000 metric tons – approximately eight times the size of its existing farm in Albany, Indiana, which has an annual production capacity of 1,200 metric tons.