The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) has secured long-term access to CRISPR-Cas9, marking a key milestone in efforts to strengthen food security and climate-resilient agriculture across smallholder farms in Asia and Africa.
The agreement with Corteva and The Broad Institute, Inc. will enable ICRISAT to deploy gene editing—one of the world’s most transformative new technologies—to develop improved crop varieties for smallholder farmers.
Unlike conventional breeding, which can take many years to combine desirable traits, gene editing can accelerate the development of crops with improved tolerance to drought, heat, pests and diseases, while enhancing productivity, nutritional quality and other farmer-preferred characteristics, without introducing DNA from unrelated species.
The long-term humanitarian licensing agreement is particularly significant for developing seed solutions for smallholder farmers across Asia and Africa. It creates a pathway to accelerate improved crop varieties capable of withstanding extreme weather, including droughts and floods, while improving farmer incomes and potentially benefiting entire rural communities.
The technology could also help feed growing populations in Asia and Africa without requiring additional land to be brought into production.
Acknowledging Corteva and The Broad Institute, Inc. for their leadership in making the agreement possible, ICRISAT Director General Dr Himanshu Pathak said the deal was a transformative humanitarian milestone for ICRISAT and the millions of smallholder farmers and their families who depend on dryland agriculture.
“Corteva’s leadership in gene editing, combined with ICRISAT’s world-leading breeding programs and our other long-standing partnerships with national agricultural research systems, this new capability will accelerate the delivery of practical crop innovations that strengthen food security, improve livelihoods and build more resilient agricultural systems across Asia and Africa,” said Dr Pathak.
The agreement enables the full pathway from research and product development to deployment of novel gene-edited solutions across ICRISAT’s mandate crops of pulses, millets and oilseeds, including sorghum, pearl millet and other millets, chickpea, pigeonpea and groundnut.
It further strengthens ICRISAT’s internationally recognised expertise in genomics, crop breeding, phenomics, seed systems and partnerships with national agricultural research systems, creating an integrated innovation pipeline from scientific discovery to improved crop varieties in farmers’ fields.
“We’re proud to collaborate with ICRISAT and help smallholder farmers across Asia and Africa access gene editing technology,” said Dr Wendy Srnic, Vice President, Biotechnology for Corteva.
“We look forward to working together to develop crops that can better withstand extreme weather events, pests and diseases and help farmers feed their communities while building a more resilient global food system”, said Dr Srnic.
