153 Nobel and World Food Prize Laureates Issue Urgent Wake-Up Call Over Hunger Tipping Point

Source: ISAAA Biotech Update – 15 January 2025
A broad coalition of 153 Nobel and World Food Prize Laureates has made an unprecedented plea for financial and political backing to develop “moonshot” technologies to avert a hunger catastrophe in the next 25 years.  

The signatories warned that the world was not even close to meeting future food needs, with an estimated 700 million people going hungry today and an additional 1.5 billion people to feed by 2050. The letter predicts that humanity faces an “even more food insecure, unstable world than exists today, worsened by a vicious cycle of conflict and food insecurity.” They added that bold action to change course must be taken, and to also pursue high risk, high reward, scientific research with the goal of transforming the global food systems to meet the nutritional needs of everyone sustainably.

Male mosquitoes to be genetically engineered to poison females with semen in Australian research
Source: The Guardian – 07 January 2025
Toxic male mosquitoes will poison females with their semen in a new population control method developed by Australian researchers. The method involves genetically engineering males to produce spider and sea anemone venom proteins, which they inject into females during mating, reducing their lifespan. Macquarie University researchers have been testing the “toxic male technique” in a species of mosquito that spreads dengue fever, Zika and other viruses, after a study using fruit flies was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications.

Trigall Australia gets go-ahead for trial of GM wheat

Source: Grain Central – 16 September 2024

The commercial cultivation of genetically modified wheat is moving closer to reality after Trigall Australia received approval for field trials of the Argentinian-developed HB4 variety.

The Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care – Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) on August 15 approved the licence application, which will permit the GM wheat to be grown at 10 sites per year with a maximum area across all sites of 20ha. The trial sites may be in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia or Western Australia. According to the application, the aim of the trial is to “gather research and regulatory data for the GM wheat under Australian growing conditions, including under environmental stress”. The GM wheat grown in the field trial will not be used for human food or animal feed.

Drought tolerant genetically modified wheat is okayed for import in the United States

Source: Genetic Literacy Project – 03 September 2024

A type of genetically modified wheat developed by Argentina’s Bioceres Crop Solutions may be safely grown in the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Tuesday. The determination clears the U.S. market for production of HB4 wheat, which is modified to tolerate drought, Bioceres said on Wednesday. It is a potential win for farmers grappling with drought and more severe weather, but risks pushback from some consumers and importers.

QUT’s GM Banana A Milestone In Biosecurity Battle

Source: Mackay and Whitsunday Life – 05 September 2024

Australia’s place in the US $20 billion global banana market has been safeguarded, according to the federal government, with a new genetically modified banana being granted approval for commercial release and consumption. The QCAV-4 variety of the Cavendish banana has been developed by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) to counteract the effects of Panama Disease or Tropical Race 4 (TR4), a fungal disease that starves bananas of their nutrients eventually killing the plant.

Barriers continue to fall for GM wheat production

Source: The Western Producer – 31 May 2024

Researchers at Agriculture Canada in Lethbridge have planted their first greenhouse plots of wheat with genes edited to better receive and use sunlight. What has changed? When it comes to genetic modification, wheat appears to be a special case. Still, wheat remained sacrosanct from genetic modification even as researchers around the world, including Canada, completed the mammoth task of mapping its genome in 2018.

What may have changed is public recognition of another threat: climate change.

Aussie team’s plan to genetically engineer food plants 50 per cent bigger

Source: Yahoo! News – 20 May 2024

As extreme droughts become more common in Australia, grains and vegetables we take for granted will struggle to adapt. But scientists believe they’ve cracked the code and created a process to genetically engineer crops to absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere so they’ll need less irrigation and fertiliser. By modifying the plants, modelling suggests they will become bigger — anything from 2 per cent to a whopping 50 per cent in biomass. And this could also result in higher yields, more money for farmers, and lower prices at the supermarket. Dr Ben Long from the University of Newcastle has been working with colleagues from Australian National University on the concept for 15 years.

Australian trial of gene-edited wheat aims for 10% bigger yields

Source: Reuters – 23 May 2024

The groundwork for a major trial of gene-edited wheat has begun in Australia, where a state company is growing hundreds of varieties it says could be up to 10% more productive and make farming more sustainable. Gene-editing is an emerging technique its advocates say could create more nutritious, hardier crops with higher yields and less need for water, fertiliser and chemicals.

Australian seed breeder InterGrain earlier this year imported several thousand wheat seeds created by U.S. agritech company Inari. These seeds are now growing in a testing greenhouse in southeast Queensland. Seeds from those plants will be used to grow more plants, producing enough seeds to plant at more than 45 trial sites across the country in the 2025 growing season.