Even though inflation seems to be slowing down, food prices are not – and biotech is here to address why.
“Over the last 12 months, food prices soared 13.1%—the largest annual increase since the year ending in March 1979,” according to CNN.
“The deadly avian flu has meant fewer eggs in the United States, a severe drought in Brazil slashed coffee crops and the war in Ukraine led to a spike in wheat prices in the spring,” CNN explains.
However, we can deal with everything from deadly animal diseases to the effects of climate change on our crops thanks to biotechnology.
As avian leukosis and avian influenza are lethal for birds and have the potential to spread to humans, gene editing allows researchers to produce chicken embryos that are immune to these diseases.
With extreme weather and climate change, drought is the new normal in the US, impacting “43.16% of the US and 51.39% of the lower 48 states, as we previously reported.
However, biotech can help by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, improving carbon sequestration, and using less water for agriculture purposes, a recent report by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) states.
But there remain obstacles, such as the need for science-based policy that enables these solutions to be applied swiftly and the need for increased consumer education about the advantages of gene editing in food.
