Source: New Scientist – 30 January 2023

A US start-up will soon begin planting genetically engineered trees in Georgia and Pennsylvania that may be able to capture more carbon than regular trees. Trees genetically engineered to grow faster and bigger will be planted on private land in Georgia and Pennsylvania by US firm Living Carbon starting early February.

The company says its modified poplar and loblolly pine trees can capture more carbon than unmodified trees, but hasn’t yet demonstrated this outside a laboratory setting.

Source: Murdoch University – 03 February 2023

The collaboration between the Western Crop Genetics Alliance, University of Tasmania and Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science offers a new opportunity for developing barley varieties that can adapt to modern farming conditions.

The researchers have discovered a new semidwarf gene and developed diagnostic molecular markers to support faster breeding of varieties which carry desirable traits such as enhanced early emergence characteristics with deep seeding.

Source: Crop Biotech Update, ISAAA – 11 January 2023

The Department of Agriculture Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) has announced that more than 100 tons of fresh paddy of beta carotene-enriched Malusog Rice (Golden Rice) have been harvested in 17 pioneer production sites across the country. 

This first harvest will be milled for distribution in target households in selected provinces in the country with preschool children at-risk for vitamin A deficiency (VAD) and undernutrition, as well as pregnant and lactating mothers.

Source: Food Ingredients First – 16 January 2023

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have discovered that genetically engineered rice with fewer stomata has better salt tolerance, allowing it to be grown in places it would otherwise fail. The findings have been published in the New Phytologist.

As concluded by the researchers, rice can be adapted to survive in environments that are becoming harsher due to climate change, which will help in tackling food insecurity around the globe.

Source: Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News – 12 January 2023

Genetically engineered plants are sprouting up to restore the carbon cycle and prevent the further buildup of carbon dioxide. There is a push to use CRISPR to make agricultural technologies that pull carbon dioxide (CO₂) out of the air and store it better in the soil. With the help of CRISPR technology, scientists are making gene edited plant varieties that are better at storing carbon and don’t have the traits of GMOs that are made with transgenes.

Many research projects have sprung up… For example, carbon sequestration research is being conducted at the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI), an organization founded by Nobel laureate Jennifer A. Doudna, PhD. In June 2022, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative gave $11 million to the IGI to help scientists find ways to protect or heal the ecosystem from harm caused by humans.

Source: Food Ingredients First – 14 December 2022

For the first time in history, scientists have genetically engineered a hen that lays eggs from which only female chicks hatch. The “Golda hen” was bred from a special technology that transfers a biological trait through sex chromosomes, which prevents the development of male embryos.

In addition to reducing the many resources needed for hatching chicks, the costs of sorting and culling the day-old male chicks – which are considered an “unnecessary by-product” in the edible egg industry – will be reduced by almost half, the researchers behind the technology note.

The new advancement for farmed poultry has drawn support from UK animal welfare group, Compassion in World Farming.

The innovation is a result of the collaboration between the Huminn Company (formerly NRS) and the Volcanic Institute, an Israeli agri-food research hub.

“The scale of the egg-laying market in the world is estimated at about 7 billion laying hens, and for each hen a male chick is destroyed,” Dr. Yuval Cinnamon, founder and chief scientific officer at the Huminn Company.

Source: Genetic Literacy Project – 09 September 2022

This paper updates previous estimates for the global value of using genetically modified (GM) crop technology in agriculture at the farm level. … Over the period 1996 to 2020, the economic benefits have been significant with farm incomes for those using the technology having increased by $261.3 billion US dollars. This equates to an average farm income gain across all GM crops grown in this period of about $112/hectare.

Over the last 25 years, GM crop seed technology has helped many farmers to grow more food, feed, and fiber using fewer resources by reducing the damage caused by pests and better controlling weeds. The highest yield increases have occurred in developing countries and this has contributed to a more reliable and secure food supply base in these countries.

Source: Food Ingredients 1st – 09 September 2022

A British spin-off science company has been given the green light from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its GM purple tomato after a long-running varietal project. And, now this could pave the way for GM to continue research into increasing the health benefits of whole foods. Its goal is to find ways of commercializing its research into foods with enhanced healthy compounds for consumers.

The USDA approved the sale of Norfolk Plant Sciences (NPS) nutrition-dense purple tomato seeds for spring 2023.

Source: QUT News – 02 September 2022

Professor Dale and the Banana Biotechnology Program from the QUT Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy received the KCA Award for Best Industry Collaboration for work between Australia and Africa that will impact future health, food security and biosecurity.

The multi-million-dollar Golden Banana project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is now close to farmer release of a pro-vitamin A fortified banana that will deliver life-saving health benefits to millions of people in Africa.

The Tropical Race 4 (TR4) Program has developed a genetically modified Cavendish banana resistant to the devastating TR4 disease. Likely to be available for commercial production in 2024, the QCav-4 promises to protect the global Cavendish industry, worth up to US$25 billion annually.

Source: Alliance for Science – 02 September 2022

The approval of genetically modified cowpea in Ghana is paving the way for agricultural advances and economic opportunities, researchers say. Ghana adopted its first biotech crop, the pod borer-resistant (PBR) cowpea, in June this year, making it the second country in the world to approve genetically modified cowpea for commercialization. It took researchers about nine years to achieve this feat.

Farmers, who are at the receiving end of the technology, have expressed excitement at the development and hope to have the PBR cowpea seeds in their hands soon. Fifty-six year old Emmanuel Attakorah, who farms a 10-acre cowpea field, expressed his joy at this development and asked that more education be given to sensitize them on best cultural practices to adopt in cultivating the product.

Source: Alliance for Science – 01 September 2022

Work has begun to possibly develop CRISPR cassava varieties that are resistant to the deadly cassava mosaic virus (CMD), after an international team of research scientists managed to identify a gene responsible for the resistance. The team, led by Wilhelm Gruissem, a professor of Plant Biotechnology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETH Zurich), finally pinned down the gene responsible for what is known as the cassava mosaic disease 2 (CMD2) resistance in some cassava cultivars. 

Source: AgDaily, 29 August 2022

According to a news release, Texas A&M University’s novel cotton-gene editing project will focus on enhancing cotton plant resistance to insect pests — paving a way for plant protection. Using gene-editing technology, the researchers are working to remove a characteristic to make plants more resistant to pests, marking a giant leap in new methodologies designed to protect plants from insects and other threats. 

The goal is to essentially silence genes in cotton that produce monoterpenes, chemicals that produce an odor pest insects home in on. By removing odors that pests associate with a good place to feed and reproduce, scientists believe they can reduce infestations, which will in turn reduce pesticide use and improve profitability.

Source: ABC Radio National – 31 August 2022

A handful of food startups around the world are racing to develop and mass produce animal-free dairy – that is, synthetic milk identical to cow’s milk. Eden Brew CEO and co-founder Jim Fader says the company first batch of non animal dairy ice cream is a few months away, and its non animal dairy milk is about a year away from shelves. 

Source: Ecos, CSIRO – 23 August 2022

Nitrogen is key to producing the world’s crops – but it comes at a cost. New research from CSIRO is developing future crops that produce their own fertiliser. Cutting environmental impacts, without impacting global food security – this challenge is being tackled by Dr Craig Wood and his team at CSIRO using advanced synthetic biology and crop biotechnology to create new crops that that can fix their own nitrogen for growth.

“Some bacteria are able to make their own fertiliser, and this unique and natural pathway is giving us the template for engineering crops with the same capacities,” Dr Wood says. His team, including Drs Christina Gregg and Rob Allen, are using the genetic templates available in bacteria and re-engineering them to have stable expression in agricultural crops. 

Source: Crop Biotech Update (ISAAA)

The TaCOL-B5 gene in wheat plants can enhance yield by more than 10% and is an excellent candidate for getting the most out of one’s wheat crop, according to a report by the Oklahoma State University. The gene was discovered in wheat cultivar CLtr176 from Mexico. It was found to increase the number of spikelets on a wheat spike by more than three, as well as increase the number of fertile tillers per plant. The gene is also rare, as it can only be found in only about 2% of wheat species across the globe.