Opportunities and Regulatory Challenges for Genome Engineering in Agriculture

world population demands that more food be produced on less, and often increasingly marginal, land. Climate change and diminishing resources, such as water and fertilizer, will make it difficult to achieve the needed increase in productivity. Whereas multiple strategies must be deployed to achieve food security, it is clear that amongst these is the need to accelerate the rate of crop improvement. Recent advances in genome engineering promise to make this possible. From targeted mutagenesis to targeted gene insertion, genome engineering is transforming plant science, making it possible to create genetic diversity with precision, efficiency and control. For the basic plant biologist, genome engineering helps dissect gene function by linking genotype to phenotype. Information garnered about plant-gene function can then be harnessed to create genetic variation relevant to agriculture to achieve increased productivity.