Words by Smiley Team
Offering a vital means to tackle future food shortages, scientists have this month unveiled a new, exciting discovery. By tweaking the genes of fruit and vegetables they are able to prolong its shelf life and protect it from bumps and bruises while traveling.
Unlike genetically modified crops, the process simply involves a small, controlled adjustment to an organism’s DNA, rather than introducing an entirely new gene from a separate species. Scientists are hopeful that this will offer an effective way to reduce food waste over the next 5 to 10 years.
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Fan-Li Chou, the vice president of Scientific Affairs and Policy at the American Seed Trade Association told Wired: “[The process] can reach the same endpoint as more traditional breeding methods – but with greater precision, and in years instead of decades.”
Researchers are still finalising the gene-editing technique, which can involve several different methods. These include the CRISPR process - removing, adding, or altering parts of a DNA sequence to achieve preferred traits.
However, a potato processing company in the US, Simplot, has already adopted the process. By changing the genes in their harvests with a process called RNAi silencing, they can ensure their spuds last longer, with less bruising or browning.
Food waste presents a huge challenge to humanity, with 1.3 billion tonnes of food going to waste each year. Meanwhile, 811 million people around the world are still going hungry. As climate change increasingly hinders food production, we are only likely to see the problem spread. If we continue to emit too much greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, a third of food production will be at severe threat by the end of the century.
[Read more: Meet the man making London edible]
Limiting the food waste caused by postharvest decline and damage offers a way to optimise our food supplies. “A huge amount of food is lost both pre- and post-harvest, and this is all part of food waste. I believe that gene editing has the potential to significantly reduce losses of food, much of it through resistance to pests and diseases,” James Dale, the leader of Queensland University’s Banana Biotechnology Program told Wired.
