News & Events

Over 60% of Africa’s people are under 25. By 2035, more young Africans will join the workforce each year than in the rest of the world combined, underscoring the urgency of the 2025 African Food Systems Forum (AFS Forum) theme: “Africa’s Youth: Leading Collaboration, Innovation, and Implementation of Agri-Food Systems Transformation.” The spotlight on youth was clear from the outset. Presidents Bassirou Diomaye Faye of Senegal and Paul Kagame of Rwanda engaged in substantive dialogue with young agrifood entrepreneurs from across the continent. Their energy was sustained through to a jubilant award ceremony celebrating the “Go-Gettaz” along with other prizes honoring young Africans.

β-Carotene biofortified crops are the most effective and sustainable components in food-based approaches to tackle vitamin A deficiencies in public. Orange cauliflower (Or gene) is one such options; however, co-dominant marker(s) are an essential requirement to deal with a semi-dominant Or gene for foreground selection in marker-assisted breeding. Thus, the present study aimed to develop and validate co-dominant marker(s) for the Or gene and deploy them for rapid recovery of homozygous OrOr progenies in three different maturity groups of Indian cauliflower. Consequently, three crosses from the early (PA/PKVA-1HM), mid-early (DC 325/PKVA-1HM) and mid-late maturity (DC 244/PKVA-1HM) groups were advanced to F2, F2:3, BC2F1 and BC1F2.

Researchers from the John Innes Centre and the Quadram Institute have developed a tomato that accumulates high levels of pro-vitamin D3—a precursor to vitamin D, also known as the "sunshine vitamin." By precisely tailoring the plant's genes, the tomatoes now contain as much Vitamin D as two eggs, with levels increasing further upon exposure to UV light. This approach offers a sustainable and accessible solution, especially benefiting the nearly one billion people globally who lack sufficient Vitamin D.

The world’s premier institute for dryland agriculture and a globally acclaimed research center, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), has brought its frontier science to Jamaica through a landmark partnership with the CARICOM Private Sector Organisation (CPSO) and SEPROD, the region’s largest food and FMCG distributor. Backed by ICRISAT’s global expertise, the project will fast-track the development of superior forage and dual-purpose sorghum varieties in Jamaica, to address fodder shortages, enhance livestock yields, and improve climate resilience to strengthen food and feed security and help cut CARICOM’s US$6 billion food import bill by 25% by 2030.

In the present study, we generate BAC libraries of the CMD-susceptible cassava cultivar (cv.) 60444 and the CMD-resistant landrace TME3. We subsequently identify and sequence BACs belonging to the CMD2 region in both cultivars using high-accuracy long-read PacBio circular consensus sequencing (ccs) reads. We then sequence and assemble the complete genomes of cv. 60444 and TME3 using a combination of ONT ultra-long reads and optical mapping

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has deregulated genetically engineered MON 95379 corn. This corn, developed by Bayer U.S. -Crop Science (Bayer), is resistant to feeding damage caused by certain pests, including fall armyworm, sugarcane borer, and corn earworm. After a thorough review, APHIS determined that MON 95379 is unlikely to pose a greater plant pest risk than the non-modified comparator and, therefore, is no longer subject to its regulation governing the introduction of certain organisms developed using genetic engineering.

Argentina's Ministry of Economy approved the commercialization of genetically modified soybean DBN8205. The decision indicated that the GM soybean is as safe as any other commercial soybean. DBN8205 was developed by DBN Biotech Argentina to confer soybean plants with resistance to lepidopteran insects and tolerance to glufosinate ammonium herbicide. The approval allows marketing and planting of the stacked insect resistant and herbicide tolerant GM soybean throughout the country after submission of an insect resistance management plan and registration in the National Registry of Cultivars.

Enhancing nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in agricultural production can reduce fertilizer input, mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and decrease water pollution incidence. However, improving NUE in farming systems without compromising food security remains challenging. Herein, we have successfully developed and applied selenium-based nanotechnology, which capitalizes on above- and belowground synergies to enhance field-scale NUE. Specifically, when N fertilizer application was reduced by 30%, foliar application of selenium nanomaterials significantly enhanced rice photosynthesis by 40.3% compared with reduced N fertilizer treatment (189 kg N/ha).

The Crop Journal highlights the significance of post-translational modifications (PTMs) in regulating rice plant immunity. Through a study conducted by China's Zhejiang University researchers and colleagues, two proteins were found to be vital in the defense response. The researchers focused on the balance between two opposing PTMs, ubiquitination and SUMOylation, which control two proteins, OsEHD1 and OsEHD2, that act as negative regulators of rice defense against rice blast and bacterial blight. They found that the enzyme OsBBI1 tags OsEHD1 and OsEHD2 with a "destroy" signal (ubiquitin), marking them for degradation. Removing these two proteins led to improved rice plant immunity, confirming their function in weakening the defense response.

Through the advances in CRISPR gene editing, scientists can engineer cells to work like living “black boxes” that automatically record hidden timelines of cellular activity, including when a signaling pathway was switched on, how long a cell was exposed to a drug, or the history of genetic changes that occurred as the cell transitioned from healthy to diseased. This capability enables cells to become “molecular record-keepers” of complex biological processes such as aging, development, and cancer.

Posttranslational modifications (PTMs) are essential regulatory mechanisms that play a critical role in plant immunity. Previously, we demonstrated that OsBBI1, a RING finger type E3 ligase, contributes to rice resistance against blast disease. In this study, we identified two Eps15 homology domain (EHD)-containing proteins, OsEHD1 and OsEHD2, as substrates of OsBBI1 and investigated their roles in rice immunity against Magnaporthe oryzae and Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo). We found that OsBBI1 ubiquitinated and promoted the degradation of OsEHD1 and OsEHD2 via ubiquitin/26S proteasome system (UPS) pathway.

A team of researchers led by Professor WANG Yanli from the Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has identified a promising new tool for genome editing called Type II-D Cas9 (NsCas9d). Cas9 is the hallmark protein of Type II CRISPR-Cas systems, with Streptococcus pyogenes Cas9 (SpCas9) the most widely used. SpCas9 is the most common and effective gene-editing tool, but it is too large for easy delivery into cells. NsCas9d, derived from the Nitrospirae bacterium, is much smaller and could solve this problem.