News & Events

Director General, IRRI “Our new strategy is about more than what we do—it’s about how we do it. IRRI’s research will be fully-integrated, demand-driven, impact-oriented, and rooted in co-creation with our partners. As we respond to diverse national needs across Asia and Africa, we will harness our collective knowledge, learn across regions, and lead with purpose. This is IRRI’s opportunity to define what we want to be known for in the next era—not just for the breakthroughs of the past, but for how we add value today, together.”

Cis-regulatory elements (CREs) govern gene expression, and the relationship between non-coding regulatory elements and gene expression is inherently complex. To further elucidate how these elements influence gene expression, we refined previous models and developed an interpretable deep learning model, termed L-CRE. By analyzing the flanking regions of genes from four distinct tomato varieties, this model successfully predicted high and low levels of gene expression,

Soybean is a worldwide-cultivated crop due to its applications in the food, feed, and biodiesel industries. Genome editing in soybean began with ZFN and TALEN technologies; however, CRISPR/Cas has emerged and shortly became the preferable approach for soybean genome manipulation since it is more precise, easy to handle, and cost-effective. Recent reports have focused on the conventional Cas9 nuclease, Cas9 nickase (nCas9) derived base editors, and Cas12a (formally Cpf1) as the most commonly used genome editors in soybean.

More than 72 000 farming and herding families in the West Bank – nearly two-thirds of all agricultural families – urgently require emergency agricultural assistance, according to a new survey published today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The survey shows that about 90 percent of West Bank agricultural families have recently lost income, driven by sharp declines in crop and livestock production and sales. These estimates are based on FAO’s Data in Emergencies (DIEM) survey for the West Bank, conducted from July–August 2025.

Improving the antioxidant activity of peanut (Arachis hypogaea) seeds is critical for extending their shelf life and enhancing their nutritional quality. Mining of genetic resources to identify loci associated with antioxidant activity could facilitate the breeding of new cultivars with high antioxidant activity in seeds. Here, we developed a population of advanced recombinant inbred lines containing 175 F5:6 families derived from the parents ‘JiHua 11’ (JH11) and ‘JiHuaTian 1’ (JHT1). We constructed a high-resolution genetic map covering 2870.3 cM, with an average length of 143.5 cM per linkage group

Double Helix, the Philippines’ first agricultural biotechnology (agbiotech) magazine for senior high school (SHS) students, now has its fifth issue, focusing on biotech products for consumers. Developed by ISAAA Inc., through the Know the Science project with the Philippine Agriculture and Fisheries Biotechnology Program of the Department of Agriculture (DA Biotech Program), this eight-page magazine is filled with illustrated stories, infographics, and activities to promote knowledge and enhance scientific literacy among young people.

ICRISAT hosted the launch of Workstream 3 – Digital Innovations under the Consortium for Red Palm Weevil Control (C4RPWC) at its headquarters in Hyderabad, marking a major push toward predictive, digital-first prevention of one of the destructive date palm pests, red palm weevil. Supported by The Presidential Court of the UAE and The Gates Foundation, the three-year global program brings together leading institutions to strengthen early detection and early warning systems and addressing critical gaps in Red Palm Weevil (RPW) management.

Soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) serves as a critical global source of plant-based protein and oil, yet the inverse relationship between seed protein content (PC) and oil content (OC) remains a major barrier to simultaneous improvement. Recent advances in genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics have elucidated key regulatory genes and networks underlying these traits, including GmWRI1a, LEC2, Glyma.20G085100, and the LAFL transcriptional module.

In a significant breakthrough for rice farmers, researchers from the Department of Agriculture–Crop Biotechnology Center (DA-CBC) have successfully used a novel floral dip-based gene editing technique to boost resistance to the devastating tungro virus in NSIC Rc 402, a widely grown Indica rice variety. Tungro, a viral disease transmitted by leafhoppers, poses a persistent threat to food security, resulting in annual crop losses that can reach up to 30%—equivalent to approximately 456,000 tons of rough rice

At the 33rd Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Research Association (AERA), held at ICAR–National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (ICAR-NAARM), Hyderabad, ICRISAT and CGIAR’s Multifunctional Landscapes (MFL) Science Program convened a high-level session on “Scaling Pathway for Multifunctional Landscapes Approach for Transforming Agri-Food Systems.”

Maize (Zea mays L.) is a widely grown food crop around the world. Drought stress seriously affects the growth and development process of plants and causes serious damage to maize yield. In the early stage, our research group conducted transcriptome sequencing analysis on the drought-resistant maize inbred line H8186 and screened out a gene with significantly down-regulated expression, Phylloplanin-like (ZmPL1). The ZmPL1 gee expression pattern was analyzed under various abiotic stresses

Researchers from the Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences reported the use of CRISPR-Cas12i3 to speed up the improvement of Jing 724, a foundational maize variety previously known for being hard to modify due to some genetic restrictions. Their findings are published as a pre-proof in aBiotech.