More than 7 million people in South Sudan - almost two-thirds of the population - could become severely food insecure in the coming months without sustained humanitarian assistance and access, three United Nations agencies warned today. If this happens, this will be the highest ever number of food insecure people in South Sudan. The period of greatest risk will be the lean season, between May and July. Particularly at risk are 155,000 people, including 29,000 children, who could suffer from the most extreme levels of hunger.

The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code has been amended to include food derived from provitamin A rice line GR2E (Golden Rice), a beta-carotene biofortified genetically modified (GM) rice under development at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).  The publication of the Food Standards variance in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette on 22 February 2018 marks completion of the regulatory process under Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ).
 

The award ceremony, which will take place in Svalbard, Norway, this Sunday (Feb 25^th) coincides with the latest shipments of more than 70,000 seeds to iconic Seed Vault. These will take the total number of seed samples deposited there over the last decade to more than one million. Deposits are made by genebanks from all over the world, to back up their own collections safely and securely.

To gain new insights into tomato breeding and their consequences, a group of researchers from China, USA, Bulgaria, and Germany analyzed the metabolic constitution and the genetic background of tomato fruits. In a paper published in the journal Cell, they presented an overview about the human influence on the chemical composition of a crop plant for the first time.

Scientists at the Sainsbury Laboratory have discovered how plants vary their response to heat stress depending on the time of day, solving a 79-year-old mystery. Since 1939, it has been known that plants' response to heat stress fluctuates between day and night. The daily cycle of plant heat resistance is a strategy that protects plants from the hottest parts of the day, and prevents energy waste at night when it is cooler

Researchers at the University of Tsukuba in Japan have identified a key genetic pathway that allows legumes to respond to soil nitrogen. They found the genetic pathway in the legume Lotus japonicus, and it controls nodulation in response to nitrogen levels in the soil. Root nodules form when there is low soil levels of fixed nitrogen molecules such as nitrate. When soil nitrate increases, legumes respond by inhibiting root nodulation. The mechanism of this response was unknown, though.

Among the major genetically engineered (GE) crops commercially grown in 26 countries, maize has the highest number of approved events (single and stacked traits) and is the second largest crop, after soybean, in terms of global adoption. Despite this, the risks and benefits of GE maize are still being debated and concerns about safety remain.

The World Academy of Science (TWAS) announced the new fellows who were elected into membership on January 26, 2018. Out of the 55 new fellows, 16 are women, an unprecedented 29 percent of the new class. Thirty-five fellows were from China (12), India (11), Brazil (5), South Africa (4) and Taiwan, China (3). The other 18 comes from Argentina, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Chile, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Oman, Panama, Sudan, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, USA, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Two new fellows are from Indonesia and Norway, where TWAS previously has had no members.

Government of Maharashtra and a consortium led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a bold initiative for the science-led development of agriculture in the drought-prone drylands of Vidarbha Region of the state.

The digital transformation of economies and societies in recent years has opened new, important possibilities for agriculture. In this context, we see the emergence of CGIAR’s Platform for Big Data in Agriculture, which aims to positively transform agricultural research, helping to generate powerful data management innovations that can revolutionize agriculture in developing countries.