Is the world facing “a potential mass starvation event” due to the war in Ukraine? It is starting to look that way. Vladimir Putin is weaponizing food and America is losing wheat as a tool of statecraft to counter it. The invasion and Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea has created unprecedented market volatility and fears of a global food crisis. States that rely on Ukrainian wheat — notably those in the Middle East and Africa such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen — will bear the immediate blunt of the crisis, but it will have far-reaching global effects.

The United States ought to embrace genetically modified technology in food production. It is critical the wheat industry, with the support from the Biden administration, get serious about policies and approvals necessary to bring genetically modified wheat traits to the market.

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With the loss of Ukrainian wheat, fertilizer shortages, and climate extremes continuing to stress global food systems and regional crop production, U.S. trading partners are now willing to purchase GM wheat…. Embracing these technologies could be the most pivotal action for addressing world wheat production since Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution.

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