The G20 Agriculture Ministers met under this cloud on September 8 in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. Even though, the chair’s summary did reflect G20 members’ commitment to step-up efforts to make agriculture and food systems sustainable and more resilient against future shocks, ministers were unable to reach a consensus on a joint communiqué.

Seasoned regulatory experts from around the world have come up with a protocol that developers of genetically modified (GM) biocontrol products will find useful in understanding the required safety data and information when generating a regulatory dossier to be used for the evaluation and decision making. Regulators will also likely benefit from the tool as it will help support their systematic and rigorous evaluation towards the product.

In the Federal Ex situ Gene Bank at the IPK Leibniz Institute in Germany, 150,000 old plant varieties are preserved. Aside from negative traits, old and exotic varieties possess many valuable gene variants that have been lost in modern varieties but may be crucial for plant breeding in the future. The IPK Leibniz Institute's extensive collection of old wheat varieties was tested for their yield performance and resistance to yellow rust not only in the laboratory but also in field trials.

Euroseeds, a group representing more than 36 national member associations and 67 direct company members in the European Union advocates for science-based decision-making with the aim of contributing to a fair and proportionate regulation of the European seed sector, freedom of choice for customers, and effective protection of intellectual property rights.

Risk factors that could push the present food crisis into the future's food availability crisis are increasing. QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, mentioned this to international policymakers at the G20 Joint Finance and Agriculture Ministers Meeting. “We must all work together to prevent such a scenario,” he stressed.

Researchers from the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) in France reported 49 plant genes transferred to the genome of the silver whitefly, a major crop pest in the tropics and subtropics. This is the first report of such an amount of gene transfers from plants to insects. The researchers used bioinformatics analysis to pinpoint the genes in the whitefly genome derived from 24 independent horizontal gene transfer events.

The results of banning the import of genetically modified (GM) maize in Mexico will not only result in economic losses amounting to billion of U.S. dollars in the country and North America, but will also affect the livestock sector, human health, food security and the environment, a recent report prepared by World Perspectives Inc. states.

Nanjing Agricultural University researchers used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology and characterized functional brassinosteroid biosynthesis genes in rice. The findings of their study are published in Plant Science. CONSTITUTIVE PHOTOMORPHOGENIC DWARF (CPD) is a vital component in the brassinosteroids (BRs) biosynthesis pathway.

Using genome editing for fish, researchers at the Center for Aquaculture Technologies were able to find a way to keep farmed fish from using excessive energy for reproduction while still producing offspring. This method is quicker, considerate of the fish's welfare, and more efficient than alternatives such as physical shock and application of chemicals and hormones to achieve the same results. The researchers developed a two-track process to overcome the sterility paradox in fish

ISAAA Inc., in partnership with the Philippine Agriculture and Fisheries Biotechnology Program (DA-Biotech Program) and the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research and Agriculture (SEARCA), published a policy brief titled To Regulate, or Not to Regulate, the Answer to the Question: The NCBP Policy on Plant Breeding Innovations or New Breeding Techniques. Ms. Ma. Lorelie U. Agbagala, Assistant Scientist at the Department of Science and Technology (DOST)