By 2030, Africa will account for 53 percent of the world’s population living in hunger, primarily due to climate change and worsening food shortages, the UN warns. In this episode of Africa Science Focus, reporter Michael Kaloki investigates how scientists are tackling the region’s food crisis by exploring gene editing to develop climate-resilient crops, particularly wheat.
Cristobal Uauy, a project leader in crop genetics at the John Innes Centre in the UK, tells us how gene editing can be used to strengthen wheat’s resistance to diseases and increase its nutritional value. Godwin Macharia, centre director for the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), says gene editing can improve yields amid a 16 percent decline in wheat production between 2022 and 2023.
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Anna Backhaus, a cereal pre-breeder at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), says gene editing requires robust policies to prevent exploitation. And Richard Shaw, director of the UK-CGIAR Centre, stresses the importance of international collaboration among organisations and countries to advance gene editing.
