By now, it is common knowledge that climate change due to global warming is one of the most urgent issues facing humanity. A 2023 report by the World Health Organization found that 3.6 billion people live in areas that are vulnerable to climate change.
At present, humans have warmed global temperatures to between 1.2°C and 1.3°C above pre-industrial levels. Many prediction models estimate that our planet will hit 1.5°C of warming—the limit set in the 2015 Paris Agreement—by 2050.
The consequences are already looking dire for the world and its food supply. Heatwaves and droughts may cause crops in some places to wither, while floods may drown whole harvests in coastal regions. Given that the global population is set to hit 9.7 billion by 2050, the need for stable food sources is going to be all the more urgent.
At this point, tackling climate change has to involve a two-pronged approach. Scientists are racing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and find ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere. While minimizing the impact is critical, however, we still have to contend with the reality that a certain amount of global warming is already happening and we have to deal with the consequences.
To address both, some scientists have been looking into an unorthodox solution: genetically-modified crops. GMOs have a long, complicated history and can be a justifiably divisive issue within the scientific and farming communities. There is certainly cause for caution. Nevertheless, research is promising that some of these new plant varieties might be able to fight food insecurity in the future.
The Controversy Around GMO Crops
GMO crops are nothing new. In 1983, scientists created antibiotic-resistant petunias and tobacco plants. By 1990, commercial farmers in China were growing genetically-modified, virus-resistant tobacco plants. And by 1994, a GMO tomato called the Flavr Savr hit the U.S. market. Today, a staggering 92 percent of corn grown in the U.S. is genetically modified. China has also approved GMO corn and soybeans for widespread commercial use.
But skepticism around GMOs remains high, in large part because if scientists are not immensely careful, their work could have unforeseen consequences. Rigorous testing and research is required to ensure that GMO crops do not contain unintended toxins or allergens. In the 1990sIn 2015, more than half of the countries in the European Union opted to ban GMO crops.
How Plants Could Help Sequester Carbon
One of the incentives for developing safe, genetically-enhanced plants is their potential to be able to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Presently, agriculture is one of the many factors driving climate change.
Part of this has to do with methane released by cattle and other grazing livestock, but another part is simply because most commercial crops capture less carbon than forests, mangroves, or other wild spaces. Since roughly 38 percent of the Earth’s land surface area is devoted to agriculture (and about one third of all greenhouse gas emissions come from our food system), that adds up.
Replacing even a modest portion of those crops with more carbon-efficient plants could make a huge difference. To that end, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies found that by genetically engineering plants with deeper, sturdier roots, they were able to lock away considerably more carbon. The key to the puzzle lies in a naturally occurring compound called suberin, which helps keep root systems from decaying and returning carbon to the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) received US$11 million in funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to pursue CRISPR gene edits to plants that allows them to capture and store more carbon in their root systems. Results so far are promising.
Providing a More Secure Food Supply
Biotechnology may also play a crucial role in the future in creating crops resilient enough to withstand the challenges of climate change. As seawater seeps into previously inland regions, salinity levels may rise to the point where our traditional crops can no longer survive.
Not all plants are quite so vulnerable to salt levels, however. Halophytes are plants that thrive in marshlands and other saltwater environments. When scientists at UC Davis transferred genes from halophytes into rice, wheat, and barley, they managed to produce much more salt-tolerant varieties. This also offers hope that, in the future, farmers may be able to grow rice in regions where it would be impossible now.
According to researchers at UC Davis, farmers in Southeast Asia already lose enough rice to feed 30 million people each year to flooding—a number almost guaranteed to rise with the sea levels. To combat this, Pam Roland, a plant-geneticist and Professor of Plant Pathology at UC Davis, and her team developed a disease-resistant variety of rice that can survive two weeks of floods. It also happens to boast a 60 percent higher yield.
For many of the farmers in Bangladesh and India receiving this hardier rice, a successful harvest is a matter of survival. In a 2021 interview with WBUR, Roland said that this GMO rice, “disportionately benefits the world’s very poorest farmers who have had the most flood-prone lands for generations.”
Vehement anti-GMO protesters have often used the image of Frankenstein to describe GMO plants and, at first glance, it might seem apt. Yet that fails to capture the nuance of the situation. There are a large number of ways in which plants can be genetically modified—and some of the modifications are far less drastic than many people might think.
Roland’s flood-tolerant rice, for instance, uses genes from an ancient variety of rice from India. While it would not have occurred through traditional plant-breeding methods, it nevertheless is drawing on the wisdom and heritage of much older sustainable farming practices. It’s a perfect example of why sometimes to embrace new, challenging developments, we also must look to the past.
Posted 08 Sep 2024
