News & Events

‘Scaling’ an innovation refers to increasing its readiness and use, which in turn increases the benefits the innovation generates. Scaling is needed now more than ever if we are to effect the unprecedented changes needed to transform the global food systems now under increasing multiple threats—e.g., from climate change, gender inequality, unsustainable practices, and growing poverty levels among the smallholder farmers who continue to feed most of the world’s population.

Enhancing genetic gain is essential for sustainable sugar and bioenergy production, especially amid growing global reliance on renewable energy sources. Sugarcane and its byproducts serve as important feedstocks for both first and second-generation biofuels, and face several breeding challenges due to its genetic complexity, extended breeding cycles, and strong environmental interactions. The breeder’s equation offers a quantitative framework to accelerate genetic improvement by optimizing four key components: additive genetic variation (σa), heritability (h2),

Experts from Texas Tech University, the University of Minnesota, and the National Polytechnic Institute (Instituto Politécnico Nacional) have developed a new method to grow engineered plants in weeks instead of months by enhancing the plant's natural ability to regenerate after being wounded or clipped. Using this approach, the researchers successfully created transgenic plants by combining genetic engineering with the plant's own healing process.

Gene drive technology is rapidly advancing, offering powerful new tools with the potential to tackle some of the world's most pressing challenges in public health and environmental conservation. Thus, this webinar will cover core concepts on gene drive while providing timely updates on real-world progress, emerging policy discussions, and the evolving societal considerations shaping the gene drive landscape. Dr. Rhodora Romero-Aldemita, Executive Director of ISAAA, Inc., will moderate the discussions.

Introduction of useful genetic variation to breeding populations is a key factor in achieving genetic gain in crop breeding. However, identifying donors from genetic diversity stored in gene banks requires extensive phenotyping, which is not feasible for many traits of interest. Genomic prediction (GP) of phenotypic values has been proposed to overcome this phenotyping bottleneck. A key challenge for GP is the identification of appropriate markers representative of genetic variation causal for phenotypes.

Experts from ​​Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and China Tobacco Guangxi Industry Co. Ltd. discovered that a gene called NtBAG5 plays a crucial role in promoting leaf senescence (leaf aging) in tobacco plants. Using CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology, the team found that disabling this gene delayed leaf yellowing and improved antioxidant activity.

For vulnerable countries and communities, climate change is already causing devastation that no amount of adaptation can prevent. These unavoidable climate impacts – from deadly heatwaves and floods to slow-onset crises like sea-level rise – are termed “Loss and Damage” (L&D). In recognition of this reality, recent UN climate summits have taken historic steps. COP27 (2022) established, and COP28 (2023) operationalized, a new Loss and Damage Fund to help vulnerable nations recover from climate-induced losses

Rice plays a central role in global food security as climate threats continue to rise. Fast-tracking genetic gains and developing climate-resilient, market-preferred varieties require a bold, system-wide transformation of rice breeding practices worldwide. Baseline diagnostics of more than 25 national rice breeding programs across the Global South revealed critical bottlenecks: obsolete breeding strategy and scheme, fragmented workflows, limited technology access, and poor integration of seed system.

The natural defenses of plants rely on tiny molecules called microRNAs (miRNAs), and scientists are still finding new ones that help plants fight off diseases. In a study published in The Plant Journal, Sichuan Agricultural University researchers discovered a crucial player in the defense of rice plants against a devastating fungus called rice blast (Magnaporthe oryzae). This new helper is a small molecule we named miR24584. When rice plants were naturally resistant to the fungus, they produced a lot of this molecule. However, susceptible plants produced very little.

Transforming global agrifood systems to be more efficient, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable is critical to meeting the Paris Agreement targets on climate change. Yet, the persistent shortfall in climate finance represents “a lost opportunity” for a sector that could cut global emissions by up to one-third. This was the message delivered by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on Friday at the Belém Climate summit.

Bentazon is an effective post-emergence herbicide in soybean. A loss of function of cytochrome P450 hydroxylase encoded by a recessive gene, bzn-1 (Glyma.16G149300), is known to confer high sensitivity to bentazon, while there is natural variation causing moderate sensitivity to bentazon that cannot be accounted for by bzn-1. Here, we identified another recessive gene, bzn-2, that confers the moderate sensitivity to bentazon. The candidate region of bzn-2 was narrowed down to 92 kb on chromosome 11 by positional cloning using recombinant inbred lines from a cross between bentazon-tolerant and moderately sensitive varieties.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences reported the successful use of a prime editing system to confer a broad-spectrum resistance to bacterial blight in rice. The findings are published in an open-access report in New Plant Protection. Rice bacterial blight is a devastating disease caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), which can hack the rice plant's DNA to make it susceptible. While some rice strains contain a defense gene called Xa23, the particular rice variety used in the study had a non-functional Xa23 because of some errors.