An agricultural program from the Republic of Korea has recently hailed ICRISAT’s role in innovating and disseminating technologies and practices that improve livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe. During a visit to Matopos Research Center, Zimbabwe, Dr Choi Young Sup, Director, Korean Program for International Cooperation in Agricultural Technology (KOPIA), commended ICRISAT’s outstanding efforts in modernizing production and processing of small grains for the benefit of farmers in the drier parts of the country.

The now-famous plant protein patty known as the Impossible Burger is designed to mimic the taste, texture, and even bloodiness of real meat. Raw, it looks just like red ground beef. Grilled medium rare, the soy-based burger firms up but keeps its soft, pink center. “We’re replicating the entire sensory experience,” says biochemist Celeste Holz-Schietinger, an inventor for Impossible Foods, based in Redwood City, CA. “Even the sizzle.”

Brussels/Rome – Acting before disasters strike is more efficient and helps save both lives and money, officials from the United Nations food agencies and the European Union said during a virtual meeting today designed to boost the role of anticipatory action as an urgently needed solution to food crises. The Brussels Dialogue - “From reaction to prevention: anticipatory action against food crises” – brought together the heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the European Union’s Humanitarian Aid operations.

Reversing biodiversity loss, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing adaptation, strengthening resilience and improving productivity are essential to address poverty and hunger, QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), said at a high-level panel discussion on Tuesday.

Scientists in the United Kingdom are applauding the decision from its government to review regulations around gene editing which could allow the UK to revise the rules on the use of gene editing technologies that can enable changes in an organism's DNA to allow it to become more precise and efficient. This, according to them, is the most significant policy breakthrough in UK plant breeding for more than 20 years.

Calyxt, Inc., developer of the high oleic soybean oil Calyno, will be developing another improved soybean capable of producing oil as a commercial alternative to palm oil.The palm oil alternative will be developed with a leading global food ingredient manufacturer in Asia. They aim to improve soybean with better health benefits and with oil that addresses sustainability challenges linked to palm oil including food miles and palm's oil effect on biodiversity.

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to three Laureates "for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems" and whose work improved the understanding of the Earth's changing climate. The announcement was made on October 5, 2021. Syukuro Manabe demonstrated how increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lead to increased temperatures at the Earth's surface. In the 1960s, Manabe led the development of physical models of the Earth's climate and his work laid the foundation for the development of current climate models.

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Zhejiang University used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology to investigate the molecular mechanism of OsFtsH2. The results are reported in BMC Plant Biology. At present, there are nine filamentation temperature-sensitive H (FtsH) proteins found in rice, but their roles remain unknown. Thus, the researchers developed several osftsh2 knockout mutants using CRISPR-Cas9.

Scientists at the Leibniz Institute for Plant Biochemistry (IPB) in Halle have used genetic engineering methods to produce purple tomatoes using dye from beetroot. The scientists smuggled the genes for the biosynthesis of betanin into the plants and activated them in the ripening fruits. Betanin is not originally formed in tomatoes and comes from beetroot as a natural food coloring. Like many dyes, betanin has a strong antioxidant effect. The purple fruits produced could also serve as a source of betanin for food coloring.

Genome editing tools including ZFNs, CRISPR, megaTALs, and TALENs are becoming more popularly used by molecular and cell biologists. These techniques are revolutionizing the creation of precisely edited genomes to change a specific characteristic of an organism. Gene drives have also changed how the inheritance of traits is controlled to address the specific needs of society.