How Genome Editing Will Improve Agriculture

New genetic techniques are improving our understanding of biological processes and genetic conditions, and are proving to be the best treatment options and disease prevention methods. With the aid of genome editing, areas of the genome linked to specific traits can now be precisely edited. Genome editing can provide a catalog of options for farmers to order exactly what they need. In crops, the technology has the potential to improve drought tolerance, eliminate diseases, increase yields, and much more. There are endless possibilities. With gene editing, the ability to pick livestock traits will be easy.

Gene editing allows scientists to engineer organisms without inserting transgenic DNA. Therefore, genome editing has a vast difference with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

Using these techniques to improve crops and livestock will contribute to address the pressing global challenge of food security.

ANIMAL WELFARE

People may be open to genetically engineered animals if it means more humane treatment, such as dairy calves that no longer require painful dehorning. Randall Prather, distinguished professor of animal sciences at the University of Missouri and director of the National Swine Resource and Research Center, helped develop pigs resistant to the deadly PRRS virus using CRISPR technology.

“This could have a significant impact on animal welfare,” says Prather. “Nobody likes to see animals suffer.

“There are physiological and emotional costs of these diseases, as well as economic, when they hit family farms,” he explains. “When I give talks about PRRS, I look out in the audience and see a wife pulling close to her husband, leaning in and tearing up. When I see that, I know those people know exactly what I’m talking about because it happened to them.”

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute are taking genes from warthogs resistant to African swine fever and inserting them into domesticated swine in an attempt to eventually eliminate this catastrophic disease from the earth. “That’s food security,” says Prather.