News & Events
The Director-General of FAO Dr Qu Dongyu met with H.E. Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa on the margins of the 38th Summit of the African Union.The Prime Minister welcome the Director-General and expressed deep gratitude for the support that FAO has extended to the country throughout the years. He expressed appreciation for the technical assistance which has pivoted Ethiopia's food production particularly wheat production in a positive trajectory.
Experts from Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology and partners in Germany conducted a review to classify mechanisms of RNA interference (RNAi) effects induced by short interfering RNA from different sources in plants and to identify technologies that can be used to detect these effects. The review paper is published in the Frontiers in Plant Science.
Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus (ToLCNDV), a begomovirus, that causes severe leaf curling, stunting, and reduced yield in tomato plants is consistently threatening its production worldwide. CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing has shown immense potential in developing disease-resistant crops. This study successfully focuses on designing a precise and efficient strategy for in planta defence against ToLCNDV.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is being applied to gene editing to create more precise and effective tools, similar to its impact on drug development. While CRISPR-Cas9 revolutionized the field, off-target effects and genomic rearrangements remain a concern, especially for in vivo therapies. Other gene editing technologies like ZFNs and TALENs also face challenges, highlighting the need for advancements that AI is now poised to address
ToLCNDV is a highly destructive plant virus that poses a significant threat to tomato plant production worldwide, particularly in Asia and the Mediterranean region. Transmitted by whiteflies, this virus causes severe symptoms, such as leaf curling, stunted growth, vein thickening, and reduced fruit yield. As such, the researchers used gene editing techniques to develop resistance of tomatoes against ToLCNDV.
Submergence stress is a major obstacle limiting the application of direct seeding in rice cultivation. Rapid bud and root growth helps plants establish a stronger growth base and improve their submergence tolerance. Therefore, mining genes for bud length (BL) and root length (RL) helps in the development of varieties that are adaptable to submergence and improve seedling emergence and yield of direct-seeded rice.
A team of researchers from the University of Cordoba in Spain used CRISPR gene editing technology to study the complexities of nitrogen metabolism in beans, revealing promising insights that could help enhance agricultural sustainability. Beans hold a unique position in global agriculture, not just as a major source of protein, but also because of their ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil.
Researchers from the Biotechnology Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), in collaboration with Anhui Agricultural University and South China Agricultural University, have developed a gene-editing technique to reduce corn plant height, enabling the creation of compact, high-density varieties resistant to lodging. In a paper published in the Plant Biotechnology Journal, the research team focused on modifying the Brachytic2 (Br2) gene through targeted gene editing.
In agroecosystems, plants are constantly exposed to attack from diverse herbivorous insects and microbes, and infestation with one species may change the plant defense response to other species. In our investigation of the relationships among rice plants, the brown planthopper Nilaparvata lugens (Stål) and the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, we observed a significant increase in the resistance of rice treated with rice blast to N. lugens, as evidenced by improved plant survival rates in a small population resistance study.
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and smart agriculture technology leader XAG are set to accelerate agricultural automation and innovation in the Philippines through digital agriculture and precision farming using drone technology. Through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), IRRI and XAG will collaborate to validate the application of smart agriculture technologies in rice-based cropping systems through experimentation and research.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has received $11.9 million in contributions from the Government of Japan to scale up its emergency and resilience activities in humanitarian contexts across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. This funding will support 14 critical projects aimed at tackling urgent humanitarian needs.
Advances in sequencing technology have unveiled examples of nucleus-encoded polycistrons, once considered rare. Exclusively polycistronic transcripts are prevalent in green algae, although the mechanism by which multiple polypeptides are translated from a single transcript is unknown. Here, we used bioinformatic and in vivo mutational analyses to evaluate competing mechanistic models for translation of bicistronic mRNAs in green algae.