Preparing for a future of resilient and sustainable agriculture that produces nutritious calories for the globe’s growing population requires a deeper understanding of the biology of plants, their associated organisms, and their responses to a changing climate.

Because the practice and outputs of agriculture affect all people, this effort must involve the social sciences and be informed by strong engagement with stakeholders along the agrifood value chain, including farmers, consumers, and public and private organizations. This transdisciplinary effort represents a new form of “digital biology.”

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Genetic engineering and gene editing are powerful approaches for defining the flow of information to and from plants’ inner biology and for programming changes in plant function, as in the introduction of genetic variants (gain and loss of function) and gene-encoded sensors, reporters, and inducers. With the emergence of synthetic biology, one can now look toward more complicated functions for gene circuits with logic elements and multiple inputs and outputs.

Realizing the full potential of these approaches will require integrated advances to address bottlenecks in plant transformation related to (i) the efficiency and versatility of gene delivery technologies; (ii) slow, labor-intensive processes such as cell and tissue manipulation and diagnostics for quality control; and (iii) the design of robust gene circuits to enable, for example, new mechanisms of bidirectional transduction.

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