Embracing Modern Crop Breeding Techniques

Embracing Modern Crop Breeding Techniques

Tim Hammerich
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

The “better for you” trend is infiltrating almost every aspect of our food system. NuCicer, a crop genetics company, is working to create a chickpea that improves protein, fiber, nutrition, and sustainability. Co-founder and CEO Kathryn Cook says they’ve accomplished this without using genetic engineering and relying instead on nature-based precision breeding.

Cook… “With some of these more complex traits like protein and yield, it makes a lot of sense to use a highly technical but still natural-based breeding process that new sites are using today. But I do see longer term there being opportunities, you know, to work with some of these other cutting-edge technologies that people are developing.”

Cook says they’re fully open to the idea of adding gene editing techniques to their approach, but development and implementation will take time.

Cook… “If gene editing or gene modification was approved in the marketplace tomorrow, it's not that all crops would start shifting over, right? There's a lot of technology that still needs to be developed for these crops before they can really embrace it. And that's actually true for chickpea as well. Transformation techniques, you know, technology needs to be built at some point if people want the opportunity to use these more modern breeding technologies and tools.”

That’s NuCicer co-founder and CEO, Kathryn Cook.

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