Gene editing key to food crises, but what about political will?

African universities are falling behind in integrating gene-editing technologies into their curricula, although genetic engineering has the potential to alleviate the continent’s persistent food shortages, according to researchers from Ethiopia and Kenya and their international counterparts.

The researchers, who are team members of the project, Feed the Future Striga-Smart Sorghum for Africa (SSSfA), an initiative that uses gene-editing skills to find solutions to sorghum growing among small-scale farmers in Eastern Africa, called for the establishment of centres of excellence in plant biotechnology in universities across the continent where gene-editing technologies can be customised to suit local needs.

In this regard, the researchers pointed out that gene editing could aid in developing drought-resistant crops, thus enhancing food production on the continent. In effect, gene editing or genome editing is a suite of tools that allows plant breeders to change an organism’s DNA structure.

CRISPR technology has exciting potential

In their study, ‘Africanising genome editing for food sustainability’, published in Elsevier’s journal, Global Food Security, the researchers noted that, if such centres of excellence were strategically established in Africa, they would not only spur innovation, but also retain African scientists trained abroad and attract international scientists keen on research partnerships.

The study’s researchers included Steven Runo, an associate professor of molecular biology at Kenyatta University; Dr Margaret Karembu, the director of the Nairobi-based Africa office of International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications; and Dr Francis Nan’gayo, a biotech expert at the African Agricultural Technology Foundation in Nairobi.

Other African researchers on the team are Firew Mekbib, an associate professor of plant sciences at Haramaya University, Ethiopia; Teklehaimanot Haileselassie, an associate professor of biology at the University of Addis Ababa; and Dr Kassahun Tesfaye, the director-general of the Bio and Emerging Technology Institute in Addis Ababa.

According to the study, African universities and other biotechnology centres of excellence could readily learn to use the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, or CRISPR, a robust technology that scientists currently use to modify the DNA of living organisms selectively.

“This technology has great potential to increase rice production in Africa because farmers will be able to regrow their hybrids for multiple generations.”

Other food crops that could be developed through CRISPR include drought-tolerant wheat and low-cyanide cassava. But even more critical, according to the researchers, African staple cereals like maize, sorghum, and different millet varieties whose yields are diminished by parasitic weeds could be CRISPR modified to be herbicide tolerant. Karembu noted that, through gene editing, there are possibilities for developing vaccines that could give Africa trypanosomiasis-resistant goats and swine fever-free pigs.

Africa shows little commitment to gene editing

However, the study found that developing human and physical science infrastructure to facilitate the development of home-grown gene-edited products remains challenging because African-led initiatives training the next generation of biotechnologists and molecular biologists are few and often poorly funded.

“Creating minimal functional units for genome editing in African laboratories is essential for its success,” pointed out a group of researchers working in local and international molecular biology institutions in Africa in the scientific correspondence, ‘Making genome editing a success story in Africa’, published in Nature on 19 March 2024.

The two groups of researchers agree that Africa is not taking advantage of opportunities inherent in biotechnology gene-editing technologies as most local universities are not offering adequate theoretical and practical training in molecular biology and genome-editing techniques.

“Advanced training initiatives in genome editing in Africa remain scattered and sparse,” according to the correspondence, spearheaded by Dr Hussein Abkallo, a livestock scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi.

According to the scientists, the existing universities and research institutions in Africa involved in innovative research through gene editing are too few to train sufficient gene-editing specialists to combat hunger and malnutrition on the continent. The issue is that, although the agricultural sector in Africa employs most people, production is low, and the continent depends heavily on food imports.

Mistrust another restricting problem

However, besides the limited number of experts in modern crop and livestock breeding techniques, Africa would have to overcome mistrust surrounding genetic engineering, which is contributed by ethical concerns, fears of unintended consequences, and a lack of transparency in communication.

Pointing out the barriers to gene editing innovations in Africa, the researchers explained that there is very little open dialogue about the scientific principles, potential benefits and risks associated with genome editing. They noted that such an effort would require cultural sensitivity, acknowledgement of historical legacies, equitable access, public and community engagement and educational initiatives.

Subsequently, against the backdrop of actual or perceived misconceptions and emotional perceptions of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in food, few countries on the continent have established legal guidelines regarding the gene editing of food crops. According to the researchers, South Africa is the only country on the continent with a full legal framework regulating the gene editing of crops.

Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Nigeria are also countries that have published gene-editing guidelines and specifically enacted legislation that excludes genome-edited products that do not carry foreign genetic material from GMO regulation. This means that, if gene-edited materials are produced using local materials, they are exempted from legislation that control GMOs. For instance, if a wheat or maize variety is improved through gene-editing but no foreign material is inserted during the process, then it is not regarded as a GMO product. In Ethiopia and Uganda, discussions are ongoing on the development of gene-editing guidelines.

According to Runo and his associates, in the project to improve sorghum production in East Africa, disparities in gene-editing applications appear to present challenges for upscaling biotechnology editing tools such as CRISPR across African countries. Their study highlighted African scientists’ lack of capacity in modern biotechnology to develop and deploy home-grown biotech solutions.

Push for GMOs causes fear

In addition to the poor conversion of advanced science from developed countries into translational research that can solve real-life problems in Africa, the researchers cited low confidence in biotechnology because of the long-held perception of the multinationals’ push for GMOs. Further, according to the researchers, the highly precautionary approach to agri-biotechnology regulation in most African countries has constrained fundamental bioscience advancement.

Those challenges appear to draw a red line regarding whether biotechnology tools should be used to solve some of the continent’s most intractable food security problems. However, according to the researchers, there are indicators that gene editing could be selectively used to increase food production in Africa.

For instance, the ongoing project on sorghum improvement has seen small-scale farmers in Ethiopia and Kenya increase yields by planting herbicide-tolerant sorghum developed using gene-editing techniques. There is also ongoing gene-editing research at Düsseldorf University in Germany to impart African rice germplasm with resistance against rice yellow mottle virus.

Precision breeding offers opportunities

The Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Institute, in partnership with the CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center), and Corteva Agriscience, the American agricultural chemical and seed company, is developing maize resistant to lethal necrosis (MLN). This infection is caused by various viruses that threaten maize production in many African countries. Several African agricultural research institutes are also developing drought-resistant wheat to stem importation. At the same time, gene editing-assisted precision breeding offers the opportunity to generate livestock that can thrive in the harsh climate characteristic of many African regions.

Despite those limited successes in addressing food security in Africa, the main issue is whether Africa can experience a green revolution like that which brought modern science to bear on a widening Asian food crisis in the 1960s. According to African researchers in the two studies, gene editing is key, but whether there will be the political will to invest in universities to train competent and adequate gene-editing experts to combat hunger on the continent is just another unanswered question.