South Africa’s agriculture faces increasing climate challenges, particularly for vulnerable crops such as fruit. Dr Peter Johnston, a climate scientist, highlights the difficulties of adaptation, while Dr Hennie Groenewald, executive manager at Biosafety South Africa, offers hope through genome editing.

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While crops are traditionally grown in specific climates suited to their needs, this balance is increasingly disrupted by rising temperatures and erratic rainfall patterns, says Johnston.

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The potential loss of crops due to heat stress, drought, or extreme weather events could devastate livelihoods, especially for high-value export commodities like citrus, nuts, and deciduous fruits and grapes.

Looking to the future, Groenewald believes genome editing will provide consumers with more choices.

“We can also use South African local crops and improve them. I would like to see agriculture becoming more sustainable because of the traits that we could use to reduce dependence on chemicals, for example, so it’s more sustainable, and I want to see farmers being more profitable.”

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