Although vegetarian and vegan diets have risen in popularity over the years, humankind’s appetite for meat is still insatiable. By 2031, it is estimated that the global demand for meat will rise by 15%, adding to an already substantial environmental burden.
Many are looking to cultured meat as a potential solution to both the ethical and environmental problems posed by mass meat consumption.
The United Nations predicts that there will be an additional 2.2 billion people on the planet by 2050.
To help feed the growing population, the food industry must overcome several critical challenges, from the amount of arable land available for growing crops and the environmental demands of agriculture to the ethical considerations surrounding the consumption of meat.
Gene-editing techniques have helped to identify a temperature tolerance factor that may protect wheat from the increasingly unpredictable challenges of climate change.
Researchers in the group of Professor Graham Moore at the John Innes Centre made the discovery during experiments looking at wheat fertility in plants exposed to either high or low temperatures.
Wheat fertility and therefore yield is highly influenced by temperature, particularly the initial stages of meiosis when chromosomes from parent cells cross over and pair to create seeds for the next generation.
Meiosis in wheat functions most efficiently at temperatures between 17-23 degrees centigrade. It is known that developing wheat does not cope well with hot temperatures and can also fail during low summer temperatures.
Identifying genetic factors that help stabilise wheat fertility outside optimal temperatures is critical if we are to breed climate resilient crops of the future.
Scientists have just genetically modified cherry tomatoes to make them easier to grow, and the future applications could include making them more viable for indoor farming and even space travel, their creators say.
The scientists, working out of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, used a gene-editing technology called CRISPR to make changes to three key genes within the cherry tomatoes’ DNA. Two of those genes are responsible for when the plant stops growing and starts flowering and fruiting. The third controls the length of the plant’s stem.
The end result is a more compact cherry tomato plant that grows in clusters, like grapes, and also more quickly than unmodified cherry tomatoes, in only around 40 days.
Food insecurity and undernourishment are currently among the most serious anxieties for human health. As the world’s population goes on to increase, there is an increase in demand for food.
Since the arable land is not rising, we need to find an alternative solution for food security to meet the demand of growing population which would reach about 9.9 billion by 2050. Moreover, there is the crucial need to curb crop loss due to pests that alone accounts for approximately 20–40 per cent of the total crop loss throughout the world. Conventional plant breeding can no longer be a solution to the ever-rising global food requirement.
Bananas turning brown is a natural process that occurs over time as the fruit overripens and produces too much ethylene. The turning of yellow pigments to brown is called enzymatic browning and is aided by high amounts of ethylene.
While there have been no known health issues arising from eating bananas that have turned brown, they taste too sweet and turn moldy and start to smell unpleasant soon enough.
Tropic, an agricultural-biotechnology company from the United Kingdom (UK), claims to have solved this issue. They have created a variety of bananas using gene editing technology to develop disease-resistant bananas that don’t turn brown and can also solve the Panama disease problem, Interesting Engineering reported.
Nigeria’s government is taking the bull by the horns and exploring various ways by which the nation can put an end to hunger. For the government, agricultural biotechnology has always been recognized as one of the formidable tools for the revival of food production. This recognition is supported by the fact that Nigeria became the first nation in Africa to commercially release the first transgenic food crop, PBR Cowpea, into the market in 2019, leading the way in advancing food security.
Just 3 years later, the Federal Government of Nigeria is taking another big leap forward with the Varietal Release Committee approving 4 new transgenic maize varieties.
In the face of increasing population, adversely changing climate, shrinking agricultural lands, inputs such as energy, fertilizer and pestisite that push the limits, people are starting to worry about the future. In addition, the world food crisis is being expressed due to regional wars, and calls for “urgent measures” are being made to administrators and politicians, especially by non-governmental organizations.
How can we interpret the fact that the number of countries under the global hunger line increased from 26 in 2000, 79 in 2010, to 95 in 2023?
It shows that the number of people facing hunger increased from 613 million in 2019 to approximately 735 million in 2023. The extreme poverty experienced in the world and the food riots that broke out in 30 countries in 2008 reveal the seriousness of the situation.
If we add expectations such as more daily calorie requirements to these constraints, humanity is forced to seize the smallest opportunity for its own future. Moreover, it is expected that the world population will reach 11.2 billion by 2100.
So how will we feed the future population with current production possibilities?
