Rubber farmers in India are urging the government to allow the use of genetically modified (GM) rubber plants, which are more resistant to disease and climate change, thus, essential for modernizing plantations and encouraging farmers to continue rubber cultivation.  Members of the National Consortium of Regional Federations of Rubber Producers' Societies pointed out the need for GM rubber technology because of the declining rubber prices and increased pest problems.

ICAR-Indian Grassland and Fodder Research Institute researchers investigated any possible long-term effects of feeding Bt cottonseed cake (CSC) to rams in a tropical setting. The results are published in Tropical Animal Health and Production. The researchers divided eighteen male rams into three treatment groups: one with no CSC, one with 35% non-Bt CSC, and one with 35% Bt CSC in their feeds. Over 320 days, they monitored the rams' growth, feed intake, blood parameters, and semen quality.

A team of researchers at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) reveals that genetic lines of corn have inherent compounds called flavonoids that serve as insecticides, protecting them from the corn earworms that feed on them. Corn earworm causes losses of more than 76 million bushels of corn in the United States annually. Increasing extreme weather events and temperatures will exacerbate the damage done to agricultural output by insect pests, according to previously conducted studies.

The 2024 NARES-IRRI Joint Advancement Meeting in Zanzibar, Tanzania, reaffirmed a shared commitment to tackling food security challenges in East and Southern Africa (ESA). Hosted by the Zanzibar Agricultural Research Institute (ZARI), the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI), and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the meeting served as a platform to assess progress, exchange insights,

Food security is about peace, stability, and human dignity, the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, told G20 Foreign Ministers gathered in Johannesburg to discuss the global geopolitical situation. According to the latest UN figures, 733 million people worldwide face chronic hunger, 2.3 billion are food insecure, and 2.8 billion lack access to healthy diets.

The CGIAR Nature-Positive Solutions had several successes in India. Most of the Initiative’s key activities happened in tribal areas in Maharashtra State. As with much of NATURE+’s work –
particularly on neglected and underutilized species, or NUS – traditional knowledge was key to the Initiative’s activities on crops, trees and nature-positive agriculture in India.

A Macquarie University-led research showed that engineered zebrafish and fruit flies can break down methylmercury and remove it from their bodies as a less harmful gas. This breakthrough highlights the great potential of genetically modified (GM) animals for pollution control. Methylmercury is one of the world's most dangerous pollutants that builds up in the environment and enters the food chain through contaminated seafood.

Researchers at the University of Missouri (Mizzou) are on the verge of a breakthrough in fighting soybean cyst nematodes (SCN) as they identified a gene that confers a new mode of resistance to the parasite. Soybean cyst nematodes cost American farmers an estimated US$2 billion in yield losses each year. Since the pest's discovery in 1954, plant scientists have worked to combat its destructive impact.

China continues to exhibit support for the commercialization of genetically modified (GM) crops to attain food security targets. This is according to a report published by Modern Diplomacy about China's agricultural priorities for 2025.“China's current Five-Year Agricultural Plan targets annual grain production exceeding 770 million tonnes, alongside a push to increase domestic soybean production to 23 million tons by 2025.

A new study by Liam Dolan and Frédéric Berger at the Gregor Mendel Institute (GMI) of Molecular Plant Biology connects climate data with genetic variation, shedding light on how plants like Marchantia polymorpha adapt to different climate conditions.Understanding how plants naturally adapt to varying environments is essential for predicting their responses to climate change, which can ultimately aid in developing more resilient crops.