Department of Agriculture (DA) Region X information officers and farmer-leaders were trained on promoting agricultural technologies, particularly biotechnology, on social media during the Storytelling Agri Innovations through Social Media held on October 4, 2017 at The Mallberry Suites Business Hotel, Cagayan De Oro City.

Companies and consumers must step up their efforts to overhaul the world's food systems at a time when the twin spectres of hunger and obesity are both on the rise, FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva told delegates at the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). Some 815 million people suffered from hunger in 2016, yet more and more adults and children are becoming obese in both the developed and developing worlds, he noted.

The European seed sector launched the campaign #EmbracingNature to emphasize and explain the essential role that plant breeding innovation plays in tackling Europe's agri-food challenges, including meeting consumer demands and contributing to a highly productive and more sustainable agriculture and food production system.

An international consortium has sequenced one of the first genomes of a moth from the superfamily Noctuoidea: Spodoptera frugiperda, or fall armyworm. Unlike majority of herbivorous insects, the armyworm is highly polyphagous and attacks over one hundred plant species, including maize, rice, sorghum, cotton, and soybean. The research team first analyzed a group of genes involved in the recognition of host plants which allows them to feed or lay their eggs.

The President of the Republic of Uganda H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has called upon African states to embrace the use of agricultural biotechnology to transform agriculture and enhance food security. This was during the official opening of  a High-level Conference on the Application of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) in Harnessing African Agricultural Transformation held on September 27-29, 2017 in Kampala, Uganda.

Uganda's biotech research received yet another boost with the launching of the largest state of the art rain out facility in the region. The facility is part of the capacity building by the NEWEST Rice program in Uganda to effectively breed for water use efficiency in the crop. Fitted with a movable roof, the facility will enable scientists to conduct controlled testing for drought tolerance in rice and other crops. The project aims to develop and release farmer preferred varieties that are Nitrogen-use Efficient, Water-use Efficient and Salt Tolerant (NEWEST) through genetic engineering.

Over the past few years, the South Asian region has taken rapid strides towards adaptation and mitigation measures to counter the challenges posed by climate change over its agricultural system. The coming together of farmers, scientific community, policymakers as well as civil society has led to the emergence of innovative solutions in the field. The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change

The genetic improvement of food staple crops is a well-established means of increasing agricultural productivity and improving rural livelihoods in the smallholder production systems that characterize agriculture in many developing countries. Seed systems and markets are the key avenue through which these genetic improvements are delivered to farmers, and many developing countries have policies, regulations, and investments to govern and manage varietal development, seed production, and distribution.

Agriculture and climate experts have warned for some years now that rising temperatures and frequency of extreme climate events including heat waves experienced in many parts of the world will lead to a drop in major staple foods like maize and wheat. One cereal stands out in this looming climate chaos: pearl millet. Now, the decoding and sequencing of the pearl millet genome by a global team of 65 scientists from 30 research institutions has revealed critical coping strategies.

An international team of researchers led by the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) has published a draft assembly and annotation of Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) genome. The ACP (Diaphorina citri) is the insect vector that spreads the bacterium responsible for citrus greening disease (Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, or CLas).