Climate change is speeding up the decline in important nutrients in our food, according to 15 leading researchers from four continents – including Prof. Asaph Aharoni of the plant and environmental sciences department at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.
“This is not a distant threat to health,” he told The Jerusalem Post in an interview. “Already today, up to two-thirds of the world’s population does not get enough essential micronutrients – including folic acid, vitamin B2, calcium, iron, and iodine – from their diet, a situation that can lead to hidden hunger,” he added.
In a comprehensive review published in the prestigious journal Nature under the title “Genetic technologies to enhance crop nutritional value under climate change,” the researchers presented a roadmap for protecting and improving the nutritional quality of crops in the face of climate change.
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They advocated the use of advanced genetic technologies – including CRISPR gene editing – to increase the vitamin and mineral content of crops while also making them more resilient to a changing climate.
