Genome editing is the future of plant breeding

“Genome editing is the future of plant breeding in terms of being more efficient and getting more genetic gains,” said Kingstone Mashingaidze, one of the speakers at the recently held CGIAR webinar on genome editing.

CGIAR centers using genome editing recently started a webinar series that will investigate the practice, benefits, social acceptance, and regulation of genome-edited products. These centers include IITA, ICRISAT, ILRI, IRRI, ICARDA, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, CIP, and CIMMYT. The first webinar was held on 22 September.

Kingstone Mashingaidze, a Senior Research Manager with the Agricultural Research Council based in Pretoria, South Africa, lamented the low agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa compared to the rest of the world.

He said, “Although for some people climate change is something for the future, for the farmer, climate change is now and already here. Africa is suffering from poor crop yields due to old and emerging pests and diseases such as maize lethal necrosis in East Africa and Fall armyworm for the rest of the Continent, coupled with nature’s vagaries.” Mashingaidze saId that breeders could not rely only on conventional breeding, which is slow, costly, has low genetic gain and a slow variety turnover.

Like all other speakers, he made a case for adding newer tools to the breeding toolkit, genome editing being one of them. Mashingaidze said that modern techniques such as genome editing allow for quick, efficient, and effective modification of crops.

Now that it was no longer contested whether genome editing adds value or not, the next point of discussion
was its regulation and social acceptance.

Neal Gutterson, the Chief Technology Officer from Corteva Agriscience, reminded participants that social acceptance, although paramount to adoption, is still uncertain. The speakers recommended partnerships with the private sector as the only way to move new technologies faster to farmers.

As it is, most of Africa is struggling with putting in place genetic engineering (GMO) regulations, so it goes without saying that there are going to be challenges with enacting policies for genome editing and its products.

All the webinar speakers had a consensus: “Genome-edited crops are different from GMOs and should be regulated differently.”

Genome editing is a group of technologies that give scientists the ability to change an organism’s DNA. These technologies “allow genetic material to be added, removed, or altered at particular locations in the genome.”

To take part in this 5-week webinar series Register at: http://icrisat.bmetrack.com/c/l?u=ACA41B2&e=10E1D0A&c=4B007&t=0&l=2A863941&email=9YYc0NIuUivA52C4CqW0DIbyzHNB5Rcr&seq=1

Other webinars will focus on:

Genome Editing in Agriculture: Innovations for Sustainable Production and Food Systems, 29 September 2020

Applications of Genome Editing in Agriculture: CGIAR Focus on Crop Improvement, 6 October 2020

Applications of Genome Editing in Agriculture: CGIAR Focus on Livestock and Aquaculture, 20 October 2020