Soybean oil is the most common oil used to produce biodiesel. Soybeans are also an important ingredient in many food products and in animal feed and we wanted to learn more about the sustainability of growing soybeans and producing biodiesel.

Sustainability is a Priority
Cindy Pulskamp is a farmer in North Dakota and also serves on the United Soybean Board and as a director for The Center for Food Integrity. She said sustainability is a priority for farmers and what that means varies from farm to farm.

“When you talk about sustainability, longevity is a big part of it. This year, the farm that I am part of will be 110 years old,” she said. “Sustainability is also always moving and changing. As soon as you learn something that makes you better, you’ve now raised the bar to make yourself better than you were. The sustainability that I look for in our soybeans and our farming operation is to always challenge ourselves to find new and better ways to produce a better product.”

Biodiesel helps improve sustainability by using every part of the bean, said Mac Marshall, vice president of market intelligence for the United Soybean Board.

“When you crush beans, you get about 80% meal and about 20% oil. The meal fraction is where the protein resides and most of that is used to feed livestock,” he said.

When it comes to the oil, some is used in foods such as cooking oil and salad dressing. About 30 years ago, farmers began funding research to find more ways to use soybean oil and developed biodiesel, Marshall said. Biodiesel is often used in vehicles such as trucks and buses.

Biodiesel and Food Prices
There has been some question if using soybeans for fuel has caused food prices to rise. A study conducted by Purdue University found that biofuels had little impact on food prices because only a small portion of soybeans are used for fuel. When soybeans are processed to create oil to meet biofuel demand, it means more meal is available for animal feed, driving down the price of animal protein products, the study determined.

“The economic model we created links the farm supply of soybeans to retail demand for various food products. What we found, after assessing the impact of rising soybean oil demand on prices at the grocery store, was little change to the Consumer Price Index (CPI),” said Jayson Lusk, the author of the study who was a food and agricultural economist at Purdue University at the time of the study. “While the increased demand for biofuels pushed up retail prices for oil between 0.16% and 4.41% across different categories, retail animal product prices for dairy, beef, pork, chicken and eggs declined between -0.01% and -0.16%.”

Biodiesel and Carbon Footprint
Biofuels are sustainable in other ways, Marshall said.

“Renewable diesel is effectively a one-to-one replacement for petroleum-based diesel fuel. Instead of having to utilize a gallon of petroleum diesel fuel, which is produced by extracting it from the earth, we are producing the same gallon of fuel that has the same utility without the extractive release of carbon into the atmosphere,” he said.

A full lifecycle analysis found that biodiesel produced from oilseed crops reduces greenhouse gas emissions up to 69% compared to petroleum diesel.

Pulskamp said biodiesel can help cut emissions in situations where electric vehicles are not feasible, such as large trucks or farm equipment that require more horsepower or areas that do not have the infrastructure for electric vehicles.

“Biofuels can bridge the chasm because biofuels take extensive amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere and you’re not losing horsepower,” she said. “Once petroleum is taken from the ground, it is gone. But soybeans are harvested and the next year we grow that crop again and produce more food and fuel. That’s one of the wonderful things about soybeans.”

When considering sustainability issues, farmers are a key part of the solution, Marshall said.

“First and foremost, we think about global nutrition and the need to continue to produce food for a growing population,” he said. “In the United States, we don’t have the luxury of bringing more land into production, nor would that be the best stewardship of a finite resource. So our farmers really have to focus on efficiency to utilize the most of what they have on each acre of land to grow the most.”

There are many tools available to help farmers be more sustainable, Pulskamp said, such as using genetics to breed plants that are healthier and learning how to best manage nutrients in the soil. “Deep in my heart, the best thing I can do is at the end of the day is knowing that I gave it my best to produce a really good product. I have talked to many, many of my fellow soy farmers and they believe the same thing.”

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), reported that half of the United States was impacted by drought or extremely dry weather during the past year. While the statistics and impacts of drought can fluctuate from week to week, one thing remains constant: weather has a significant impact on farmers and influences the price of food.

As soil moisture dwindles, crops productivity falls. Droughts can also disrupt the planting and harvesting schedules of plants, resulting in lower yields and making plants more vulnerable to pests and diseases.

Dr. Dennis Todey is a climatologist with the USDA Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, Iowa, and said the full impact of this year’s drought is not yet known.

“There are places that will see significantly reduced yields.  But at this point supply does not seem to be a major problem.  The drought developed later in the season and may hit soybeans more.  Earlier in the season conditions were manageable for crops overall,” he said.

Where irrigation is available, growers were able to irrigate their food crops, so the yields were not affected as much, Dr. Todey said. Row crops such as grains and soybeans are irrigated less often.

However, the drought could cause the prices of meat and dairy products to increase because the cost of animal feed will be higher, reported Clevland.com, a news and information site based in Ohio.

But drought is not the only issue. USDA’s climate tracking is witnessing storm events with greater impacts – more damaging wind or hail events and heavier precipitation, Dr. Todey said. This weather impacts food supplies and prices at the store. For instance, the prices of vegetables, nuts, and berries are higher this year because of flooding in California, according to USA Today.  A combination of factors including drought, labor costs, war in Ukraine and trade disruptions led to record-high food prices in 2022, NPR reported.

Managing extreme events is challenging climatologists, researchers and agricultural producers. Farmers are proactively researching and implementing a range of practices including diversifying cropping systems, selecting crops better suited to drought conditions, and adopting soil management practices such as incorporating cover crops into rotation, in defense of conditions mother nature throws their way.

“Soils are our first line of defense against changing climate conditions,” Dr. Todey said. “Improving soil management has to be part of every operation. Changing rainfall with larger events and more rain when we have no crop canopy are also making soil loss worse. Improving soil management including reducing tillage and cover cropping can help mitigate soil loss issues.”

Weather has a direct impact on how food is grown and can affect the price of food. Farmers and scientists continue to develop methods to lessen the impact of weather and climate change.

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Gene editing is a new technology that scientists are using to make targeted, precise changes to the DNA of living organisms. While these edits happen at a microscopic (molecular) level, they have the potential to make a significant positive impact on our world.

In the field of medicine, scientists are researching how gene editing can treat diseases such as cancer, sickle cell anemia and a wide range of genetic disorders.  Read How can CRISPR treat disease?

In agriculture, gene editing is used to breed plants and animals, reduce diseases, and minimize the impact of pests and severe weather. Gene editing can also be used to make foods taste better, increase nutrients and prolong shelf-life to reduce waste.

For example, a new type of leafy greens that are higher in nutrients and more flavorful are now available in foodservice. Gene edited tomatoes are sold in Japan and the UK. Many more gene-edited foods are on the horizon, with more than 500 products under development globally, according to S&P Global.

As the use of gene editing continues to become more prevalent in food and agriculture, Best Food Facts set out to learn more about it. We reached out to three experts – Dr. Rodolphe Barrangou, Distinguished Professor at North Carolina State University; Dr. Zhongde Wang, Professor at Utah State University; and Dr. Jennifer Kuzma, Goodnight-NC GSK Foundation Distinguished Professor in Social Sciences at North Carolina State University and co-founder and co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center – to get their insight about this new technology.

The series contains three articles:

• What is gene editing?
• Are gene-edited foods safe to eat?
• How can gene editing make the food system more sustainable?

What is gene editing?

Dr. Barrangou: “It is a set of molecular tools that enables molecular biologists to edit the DNA sequence of virtually any organism on planet Earth, anyway we want at speed and at scale.”

Dr. Kuzma: “It is a set of techniques for very site-specific introductions or changes in the genome at a particular location. You can make very small changes to the genome. Gene editing often relies on enzymes called site-directed nucleases that will cut the DNA in a particular location. Then if you provide an additional DNA template, the genome will copy that change, much like changing a letter in a word or sentence. That’s what distinguishes gene editing from the first generation of genetically engineered crops, which were not as targeted or specific.”

Improvements through history

Gene editing is the latest technique being used to develop better food.

Even before scientists fully understood genes and DNA, they studied genetics searching for ways to make life better. For instance, about 3,000 years ago, farmers in Asia bred horses and donkeys to produce mules for transportation and farm work. The corn we know today was first grown by Indigenous peoples in North America, who bred maize plants to produce better grain. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, kohlrabi and brussels sprouts all came from the wild mustard plant, which farmers bred to develop specific traits. And now, gene editing is accelerating those improvements.

Production animals such as cows, pigs and chickens have been bred to improve the production of milk, beef, bacon and eggs, Dr. Barrangou said. The challenge for scientists is that it takes a long time for a plant or animal to grow and pass the desired traits to its offspring. Gene editing allows researchers to speed the process.

“Instead of waiting years and multiple breeding cycles to have more flavorful tomatoes or higher yielding corn or better tasting kale, or brighter, more oxidant-containing berries and grapes, we can use genome editing technologies to bestow some of those traits upon the species of interest at speed, scale and cost,” Dr. Barrangou said.

Learn more about how gene editing is being used in food:

• Tomatoes with more Vitamin D
• Soybean oil without trans fats
• Cows with a slick coat to tolerate heat
• Better tasting mustard greens
• Progress toward disease-resistant pigs
• Removing allergens from wheat, peanuts and milk

What’s the difference between GMOs and gene editing?

Dr. Wang: “GMOs refers to any organism whose genome has been modified. The term GMOs was coined before gene editing techniques were available. Gene editing is totally different from the traditional genetic modification methods used in making GMOs in that gene editing is a process of changing the genome with single nucleotide precision while traditional genetic modification tends to introduce DNA from other organisms.”

Read Are GMOs Good or Bad?

What are some of the uses of gene editing that you see as most promising?

Dr. Barrangou: “The ability to recode the code of life of all organisms from very simple basic viruses to microscopic bacteria, fungi, yeast and the like, all the way to sophisticated large organisms like livestock that we eat, plants including crops that we consume and of course, humans for medical applications. And even in environmental stewardship for things like trees and forestry. It is a transformative, disruptive technology that allows humankind to recode the code of life across the planet.”

Dr. Wang: “Developing gene therapy techniques for human medicine, developing new animal models, and improving the genetics of livestock. It could also be very promising in synthetic biology.”

Synthetic biology involves redesigning organisms for useful purposes by engineering them to have new abilities.

Is there anything you would like people to know about gene editing?

Dr. Barrangou: “As scientists, we want to use the best science and technology in the world to solve the grandest problems that we have in humankind. We use the best technologies available to us – the best tools, the most sophisticated data and insights and resources – to tackle those challenges, such as sustainable agriculture, expanding the human lifespan, tackling disease and beating cancer. Growing stuff out of nothing to feed a nutritious diet to billions of people is not a trivial process.”

Gene editing is a technique that precisely alters the genome of an organism to make beneficial changes. This new technology has the potential to prevent or treat human and animal diseases, combat the impacts of climate change and increase the sustainability of the food system.

The post What is Gene Editing? appeared first on Best Food Facts.

In agriculture, gene editing is being used in plants and animals to reduce disease and the impact of pests. Read more about the science of gene editing.

In the United States, we rely on a network of government agencies to ensure the safety of all food, including food produced using advanced breeding techniques like gene editing.

• Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates food made from plants and animals developed using gene editing. All foods regulated by the FDA that are produced, processed, stored, shipped or sold in the United States are held to the same safety standards.
• U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) oversees the safety of gene editing in plants.
• Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) makes sure gene-edited organisms do not pose risks to human health or the environment.

For example, before gene-edited livestock used in food production can be sold in the U.S., the developer is required to complete FDA’s safety review process. This process includes submitting years of research and trial data to prove the application is both safe and effective. In 2022, FDA ruled that the first slick-haired cattle that were gene-edited to better tolerate heat are “low risk and do not raise any safety concerns.”

We reached out to three experts to get their insights on this new technology that has the potential to significantly improve our food system. Dr. Jennifer Kuzma is the Goodnight-NC GSK Foundation Distinguished Professor in Social Sciences at North Carolina State University and co-founder and co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center; Dr. Zhongde Wang is a Professor in the Department of Animal, Dairy and Veterinary Sciences at Utah State University and Dr. Rodolphe Barrangou is the Todd R. Klaenhammer Distinguished Professor at North Carolina State University.

How is gene editing being used in food and agriculture?

Dr. Kuzma: “Most of the gene editing work taking place now involves making food healthier or more sustainable. Gene edits have been made for yield enhancements, increasing nutrients in plants, improving taste and heat and cold tolerance and disease resistance for plants and animals.”

Dr. Wang: “In livestock, gene editing has been used to introduce single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) among different breeds of a species to improve certain traits, such as heat tolerance, resistance to infectious disease, etc.”

Learn more about how gene editing is being used in food:

• Tomatoes with more Vitamin D
• Soybean oil without trans fats
• Cows with a slick coat to tolerate heat
• Better tasting mustard greens
  
• Progress toward disease-resistant pigs
• Removing allergens from wheat, peanuts and milk
• Developing more sustainable ingredients

What is the potential impact of gene editing technology?

Dr. Barrangou: “I think it’s a game changer. Think about the ability to recode the code of life of organisms from very simple basic viruses to microscopic bacteria all the way to sophisticated large organisms, like animals including livestock that we eat, plants, including crops that we consume, and of course, humans, for all the medical applications we can think of and even in environmental stewardship, things like trees and forestry. It’s a transformative, disruptive technology that allows humankind to recode the code of life.”

Because gene editing has so many uses, it is important that technology developers use the powerful tool safely and transparently. Learn what the Coalition for Responsible Gene Editing in Agriculture is doing to build trust in gene editing.

Is it safe to eat gene-edited foods?

Dr. Wang: “With scientific vigor, regulatory oversights and approvals, it is safe to consume foods from gene-edited plants and animals. Any genetic changes, including any unintentional changes, and biological consequences need to be clearly validated. It is safe to say that, if a naturally existing trait from one animal is engineered into another in the same species, there should be no concern to consume the food from the edited animal.”

Dr. Barrangou: “90 to 95% of all the genome editing work is focusing on human therapeutics. There are hundreds of people who have been dosed with genome editing, medicines, therapies and therapeutics that enable us to correct ‘typos’ in human DNA that are responsible for terminal diseases. The FDA is confident enough to dose American citizens with CRISPR medicines because it is safe. I would argue that if it’s safe enough to put in our veins, it’s safe enough to put in our mouths.”

As gene-edited foods start to become available, what assurances can we have that they will be safe?

Dr. Kuzma: “The first thing is to keep in mind that companies do not want to offer a product that isn’t safe. Companies have their own internal checks to look for possible issues. The second thing is that there is a consultation process through the Food and Drug Administration. Companies submit data to FDA, which will look for different compositional changes in the product that might trigger a safety issue.”

To date, there are two gene-edited foods on the market — a purple tomato with increased antioxidants and soybean oil high in oleic acid. A new, better-tasting leafy green has also received USDA approval and will be introduced in the summer of 2023. There are hundreds more gene-edited foods in the development pipeline and they must all go through the stringent regulatory review and approval process before they can be sold in the U.S. Learn more about the specific regulations FDA has for plants and animals.

Gene editing is a technology that makes precise changes in the genome of an organism. A network of U.S. regulatory agencies provide oversight using a stringent review and approval process to make sure gene-edited foods are safe for people, animals and the environment.

The post Is Gene-Edited Food Safe to Eat? appeared first on Best Food Facts.

Gene editing could also make a significant difference in making agriculture more sustainable. By helping plants and animals become more resilient to climate change and disease, the technology could lead to a more resilient and affordable food supply.

Best Food Facts contacted three experts – Dr. Rodolphe Barrangou, Distinguished Professor at North Carolina State University, Dr. Zhongde Wang, Professor at Utah State University, and Dr. Jennifer Kuzma, Goodnight-NC GSK Foundation Distinguished Professor in Social Sciences at North Carolina State University and co-founder and co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center – to find out more about gene editing and its use in food production. Read more in the series:

• What is gene editing?
• Are gene-edited foods safe to eat?

Improving animal welfare

In much the same way that gene therapy is being researched to cure diseases in humans, researchers are using gene editing to help animals. Dr. Wang’s lab at Utah State University is among the first to employ gene editing techniques to improve the genetics of livestock.

“In livestock, we are in the process of editing the genomes of cattle, sheep, goat and alpaca both for agricultural and medical applications,” he said. “In livestock, gene editing can be used to make the animals disease-resistant and better able to handle cold and heat stresses.”

Here are a few real-world examples of how gene editing is being applied to help animals live better. Gene editing is helping pigs develop resistance to a devastating virus called PRRS (Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome), which affects pork producers all over the world. For cattle, the FDA recently approved the sale of beef from cattle with genes altered with CRISPR to have shorter hair. These “slick coat” cattle are better acclimated to live in warm climates.

Safety for animals and people

Is gene editing safe for the animals involved?

Dr. Kuzma: “Animals are regulated a bit more stringently by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has a mandatory policy to review all animals that are genetically altered, which provides more assurance of safety.”

Is it safe to eat food made from animals that have been edited?

Dr. Wang: “With scientific vigor, regulatory oversights and approvals, it is safe to consume foods from gene-edited animals.”

Learn more about the safety of gene edited foods.

Improving sustainability

By helping farmers to grow more food by using less land and water, gene editing could make agriculture more sustainable. Dr. Barrangou is researching gene editing to enable trees and forests to be more resilient to climate change.

Dr. Barrangou: “Think of bio-resilience as the ability of something to sustain itself in the face of global warming, in the face of drought or pest, whether it’s insects, viruses, bacteria or fungi. If you’re a tree and you’re in place for hundreds of years, you can’t go and escape. You can’t migrate north if it’s getting hot. You can’t migrate closer to the water if it’s getting dry. So we have to breed in those resistance traits to provide a more sustainable and resilient forest, whether you’re going to use that to grow fruits or nuts or capture carbon.”

Gene editing helps scientists to speed the natural process of breeding and reproducing, which makes it especially important in regard to climate change.

Dr. Barrangou: “The sense of urgency and timelines under which we can develop those products is very important. There’s a heightened sensitivity and urgency to address sustainable farming.”

Gene editing is an emerging technology used to treat disease in humans and animals. It could also help scientists develop plants and animals that are more resilient in the face of climate change.

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Food influencers got to go behind the scenes to explore sustainability taking place on Iowa farms during the 2022 Best Food Facts Tour. The event included exclusive exploration of the ins and outs of sustainability practices, including cattle farming, the importance of soil health, innovation and cover crops.  

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These technologies have become common on farms because of many benefits they provide for farmers, consumers and the environment.

GPS, sensors, and other digital tools and data analytics are called precision ag, or information technology applied to agriculture, said Dr. Terry Griffin, associate professor at Kansas State University.

“Farming uses technology rivaling the most digital of industries,” Dr. Griffin said. “Just like many of the cars our readers drive, farm equipment collects diagnostic data to push up to the cloud so that the manufacturer and farm operator can access that data for their purposes.”

Oswald became interested in precision agriculture because he wanted to protect the soil on his northwest Iowa farm.

“Our land here is gently rolling and I really wanted to focus on reducing soil erosion. I decided I needed to do something to better hold the soil on our gently rolling slopes,” he said.

Oswald began by reducing tillage – or the amount the soil is disturbed to plant seeds. When GPS technology became available, he used it to take soil samples to get an accurate picture of the soil in specific locations. Now, nearly every piece of equipment on his farm is equipped with precision ag technology. Innovation is now available to ensure exact seed placement, make precise applications of fertilizer and herbicide, monitor yields and guide tractors.

“By deploying technology, we can better place the products we’re putting in the field so we can do more with less,” Oswald said. “It’s like a killer app. Once you use it, you don’t want to quit.”

Farmers use a variety of technologies that work together to give them detailed information about their soil and crops grown for food ingredients and animal feed, such as soybeans, corn and wheat.

“Automated guidance is analogous to self-driving cars – at least for making parallel passes in the farmer’s field. Instantaneous sensors on crop harvesters measure yield, moisture, and quality characteristics every few seconds; and with GPS this data can be georeferenced into a map,” Dr. Griffin said.

That data is then used to determine the optimum plan for each precise location to grow crops using as few resources as possible.

“With knowledge of how soil nutrients vary spatially across the field, prescription of soil fertility amendments can be developed to apply fertilizer at site-specific or variable rates across the field. In the last decade, farm data has been a major consideration, especially with respect to aggregating individual farm data into communities of big data,” Dr. Griffin said.

How does precision ag improve sustainability?

Precision agriculture helps make farming more sustainable in many ways. By precisely applying fertilizer, seed and crop protection products, these state-of-the-art technologies lessen the environmental impact of farming. Farmers can also control their costs, which helps them to be economically viable so they can continue to farm. This also helps to keep food costs affordable as it enables growing more food while using less land.

Dr. Griffin said there have been some unexpected benefits, as well.

“When automated guidance was commercialized about 20 years ago, the technology seemed to have ubiquitous advantages for reducing overlap and allowing equipment operators to work additional hours in a day,” he said. “One of the greatest benefits was not measured with dollars but with satisfaction and improved quality-of-life from less fatigue. The less fatigued equipment operator could translate into greater satisfaction of the entire rural household from improved social relations.”

Looking forward, Dr. Griffin expects more automation to be involved in farming.

“In the past, tedious manual tasks have been automated; in the future, more complex tasks that typically have required humans with advanced skill sets will be automated,” he said. “The first steps have already been completed with data collection via sensors and transferring data to the cloud. Think of how self-driving cars have automated the task of navigating a busy street by replacing the human driver; then apply that type of technology to removing humans from the decision-making process.”

One day, precision farming might be combined with other advances, such as gene editing, to develop plants with disease or drought resistance, Oswald believes. Learn more about gene editing in agriculture.

“I think gene editing has powerful potential for humankind in understanding and addressing issues through genetics,” he said. “Because it is a precise modification, plants could be made better suited for the environment where they’re going to be growing. The next step could be a gene-edited crop that is planted in a specific part of the field.”

Farmers control much of precision ag technology through their cell phones.

“Mobile devices play a key role for each of the players in this system, and the importance of mobile devices is only increasing as precision agriculture becomes the order of the day for 21st-century farmers,” Dr. Griffin said.

Farmers use precision agriculture to apply the latest technology to help them grow enough food using fewer inputs and natural resources.

Developed with support of United Soybean Board.

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This is an especially exciting time as scientists are seeing their research applied in the field, leading to food that is healthier, better quality and more sustainably produced.

High-oleic soybean oil is the first gene-edited food product available on the market. This heart-healthy oil has zero trans fats, longer shelf life and performs well in baking and frying.

“We wanted to use gene editing to create a soybean variety that was higher in monounsaturated fats and compete effectively with oils like sunflower, canola or olive oil,” said Dr. Dan Voytas, a professor at the University of Minnesota, who helped develop the gene-edited high-oleic soybean.

The innovation was possible because gene editing allows for very precise changes in the plant’s genome, Dr. Voytas said.

Dr. Steve Whitham is working to improve soybeans, an important crop that is used in food, oil and animal feed. One goal of his research is to make farming more sustainable by helping farmers grow more using fewer inputs and natural resources.

“It’s estimated that we lose 15 to 20 percent of the soybean crop to diseases each year,” said Dr. Whitham, professor at Iowa State University and co-director of the Crop Bioengineering Center. “In the last severe drought in 2012, we lost 9 percent of soybean yield. Disease and environmental stress such as drought are important factors that prevent the soybean crop from reaching its full yield potential.”

Researchers are also using gene editing to increase the protein content of soybeans for use in plant-based foods and as a source of feed for animals.

Three years ago, Best Food Facts spoke to Dr. Jessica Lyons at the University of California-Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) about using gene editing to improve cassava, an important part of the diet for nearly 1 billion people in the world. The plant contains compounds that can cause people to be poisoned from cyanide if the root has not been sufficiently processed. If people are ingesting the cyanide, over time, this can lead to neurological disorders.

For the team developing the cassava plant, the project has personal meaning.

“Growing up in a Colombian family, I knew cassava by the name yuca. It would be part of many delicious meals at home. So for me, there is a personal connection to working on this crop,” said Dr. Michael Gomez, also of the IGI. “I was surprised to learn about cassava’s toxicity and how it could negatively affect consumers in dire circumstances. Generating non-toxic cassava is a stellar use of the CRISPR technology and has the potential to mitigate global food challenges.”

The researchers are excited to see their research come to fruition.

“We have shown, in three different cassava varieties, that we have completely prevented cyanogenesis. That is, we have used genome editing to make plants that don’t make cyanide,” Dr. Lyons said. Read more about the research here.

What is gene editing?

“Gene editing is a very precise way of modifying genes within a plant cell. The types of edits that we create are no different than the variation in genes that occurs in nature,” Dr. Whitham said.

CRISPR is one common technique used for gene editing. The process is a way of speeding up the natural evolution of genetics.

“Traditional breeding methods can be laborious and time-consuming. With gene editing, the desired DNA alterations can be acquired within a single generation and the end product could be indistinguishable from a traditionally bred crop,” Dr. Gomez said.

How can gene editing help the environment?

In addition to improving food, gene editing can also help farmers control diseases and adapt to changing environmental conditions.

“There are many benefits to the environment by reducing the carbon footprint of producing soybeans, as well as reducing the application of crop protection products,” Dr. Whitham said. “We’re learning more about genes that control plant responses to disease and stress.”

By precisely editing these genes, the plants can be made to better resist disease and withstand stress. Scientists see many ways gene editing can be applied to create climate solutions.

“Genome editing is a great precision breeding tool. Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing climate, there’s an urgent need for new climate-resilient crop varieties, and this tool has the potential to help us breed them more quickly and more precisely than conventional breeding,” Dr. Lyons said. “It can have huge benefits for agriculture, including for disease resistance, and even for climate change mitigation — for example, it could be used to engineer plants with deeper roots that store more carbon in the soil.”

Dr. Voytas said gene editing might be used to develop soybean oil that is similar to palm oil. That enhances sustainability, as palm oil production often leads to deforestation and the oil must be transported great distances.

“We could easily use gene editing to create a palm oil equivalent that is produced locally and sustainably,” he said.

Gene editing is a technology being used to make precise changes in genetic material to improve food quality and increase the sustainability of farming and food.

Developed with support of United Soybean Board

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