“When we talk about food insecurity, we know that over 828 million people worldwide are hungry,” says Sarah Evanega, lead of Stakeholder Communication for Pairwise. “They don’t have enough calories — but when we look at nutrition security, the numbers are even more staggering.”

According to the World Health Organization, over 2 billion people worldwide are living with nutrient deficiencies, Evanega adds. For her, though food security is important, ensuring nutrition security is top-of-mind.

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To tackle the growing population, plant breeders are using every tool in their toolbox they possibly can.

“In the U.S., fewer than one in 10 adults eats the recommended daily amount of fruits and vegetables. There’s a lot of social reasons for that,” Evanega says. “But, plant breeding can also play a role in removing those barriers to vegetable and fruit consumption.”

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For gene editing, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Evanega believes there will be many more applications in the future, and it’ll be a wonderful tool to help feed 10 billion people by 2050.

“We need tools, and CRISPR is one of those much-needed tools that are going to help us accelerate innovation in crops and increase efficiency,” she says.

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