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Currently, hunger affects nearly 12 per cent of the world’s population — 4 per cent more than in 2015, when the United Nations launched the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. If all scientific knowledge and technological innovation in crop development were readily available and globally adopted, could zero hunger have been achieved by 2030? Most people recognize the potential for agricultural biotechnology to contribute to food security. However, there has been limited application and adoption of new crop varieties in countries that are disproportionately affected by malnutrition and food insecurity.
Genome editing provides a unique opportunity to create produce benefiting consumers, but success depends on risk-proportional regulation. Existing seedless fruit varieties such as watermelon, mandarin oranges and grape are strongly preferred by consumers and support healthy diets without pre-market regulatory approvals required for commercialization. Replicating the seedless trait in other fruits is a promising way to increase consumption. Here we compare the differential treatment by various regulatory systems of identical products made by inserting an ancient seedless allele into muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia) using traditional breeding or templated or non-templated genome editing tools.
