As our civilization faces the conjunction of rising population and climate instability, the question of food security is rising back to the forefront of the important issues to tackle.

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As a result, massive pressure is building on agronomists and plant scientists to provide solutions that ideally would manage all at once to provide carbon sequestration, increased food production, and reduced impact on arable lands.

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One of the most promising tools is genetic engineering, but it has a different focus than previous crop gene editing. While the previous focus has been on pushing for higher yields at any cost…more advanced methods could combine higher production with more sustainable results as well.

New genomics techniques can now use the wealth of genomic data accumulated in the past decades to create more resilient and productive plants.

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Meanwhile, our regulations and perception of genetic engineering need to evolve as well. The ultimate goal of protecting the environment will need to overcome preconceptions about GMOs created when genetic engineering was still relatively primitive.

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