[D]espite scientific consensus on the safety of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, they have faced significant regulatory hurdles and public resistance over the past two decades.  

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But whereas GMOs involve inserting foreign DNA from other organisms, newer and more targeted gene-editing techniques such as CRISPR may be more acceptable to consumers. CRISPR makes precise changes (cB) to genes without introducing traits from another species. Around the world, efforts are underway to use CRISPR to edit foods — making them tastier, more nutritious, or easier to eat — or even to make crops more resilient to climate change. If these genetically engineered foods can avoid  the “GMO curse”,  they could unlock new opportunities for low- and middle-income countries to address hunger, combat poverty and inequality, and even cut carbon emissions.

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“If you get more than three or four traits that breeders have to select for, the fifth, sixth, and seventh start being left behind,” said [Tom Adams, CEO of Pairwise, a North Carolina-based startup using CRISPR]. “So [CRISPR] gives you the opportunity to really do things that can satisfy the consumer, satisfy the grower, and satisfy the supply chain.”

While CRISPR so far appears to be steering clear of many of the controversies GMOs have faced, it is one of a range of tools that will be needed for a food system that is strained by climate change. 

Steven Runo emphasized that traditional GMO techniques remain essential, for reasons that range from fortifying foods with essential nutrients to making plants resistant to disease. [A molecular biologist at the Plant Transformation Lab at Kenyatta University in Kenya, Runo is working to make sorghum, an ancient grain, resistant to the parasitic weed Striga.]

“We need both technologies,” he said. “There are things that CRISPR can do that GM technology cannot do, and there are also things that GM technology can do that CRISPR cannot.”

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