Podcast: Scientists harness gene editing for climate-resilient wheat

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Season 4, Episode 51

By 2030, Africa will account for 53 per cent 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 per cent decline in wheat production between 2022 and 2023.

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.

This episode was supported by the UK-CGIAR Centre. The UK-CGIAR Centre, hosted at CABI (CAB International, the parent organization of SciDev.Net), aims to support global food security by bringing together scientists from the UK and CGIAR to form impact-focused research collaborations. This project is funded by UK International Development.

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Africa Science Focus is produced by SciDev.Net and distributed in association with your local radio station

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Sub-Saharan Africa English desk.