Unleashing the Genius of the Genome to Feed the Developing World

The prospect of another agricultural revolution evokes both hope and fear. The first agricultural revolution--the domestication of edible plants--began a long process of narrowing the genome of plants for farming. Centuries of selecting, crossbreeding, and propagating plants for traits such as grain size, pest resistance, food safety safety, and color have increased and refined our food, but have also inadvertently eliminated countless genes that are important for crops' natural defenses and for our nutrition.