b'GIANT VIEWSHOW GENE EDITING IS RESHAPINGEVERY ASPECT OF AGRICULTURETHOUGH IT hasnt garnered the attention this revolutiontional income without risk. This is the merits, a new technology is reshaping the oldest humanpromise of gene editing. enterprise: agriculture. With gene editing comes a newThe key to this revolution lies in model of how crops are improved and produced, whothe way new traits will be produced produces the plants, and how they will be introduced toand introduced into crops. Rather farmers and importantly how plant breeding can quicklythan introduce a foreign gene ran-respond to change, including arming crops with traits todomly and then back-crossing it into combat our changing climate. The changes coming toan elite hybrid, with gene editing, the agriculture will be as profound as the original marriage ofresearcher edits the appropriate gene agriculture and genetics, but this revolution represents anon-randomly within an existing elite return to the way plants adapt in nature.plant. Then, the researcher grows the Peter Beetham,To understand the degree to which gene editing toolsplant with the new trait from a single President & CEO,are reshaping the seed industry, consider an analogy:cell into a new hybrid that has all Cibus the telephone. For generations, innovation in phonesthe characteristics of its parent, plus occurred slowly and within the context of land lines,the desired trait. Because researchers reflecting the conservatism of both the providers andcan precisely trace the edits and only the customers. Then, in the 1980s, cell phones camegrow those plants with the desired along, liberating people from their desks, followed bychange, there is no possibility of smartphones, which saw new features such as cameras,unintended consequences. The new GPS and internet. The companies that now dominate theplant has a normal regulatory path as mobile worldApple, Samsunghad no presence incompared to a GMO organism. the landline universe which dominated the telecommuni- Precision gene editing allows plant cations landscape for 100 years.breeders to introduce new traits simul-Until just a few years ago, the seed industry was verytaneously, and because nature is effi-much like the telecommunications business during thecient, understanding the genetics of a Bell conglomerate. The customers are conservative, andparticular trait such as disease resist-David Sippell,as most crops ended up as commodities, seed customersance in one plant, gives researchers a Senior Vice- felt no urgency to react to innovations. This was conveni- leg up in understanding the genetics President, Seedsent for the big seed producers as innovation was a slowof such resistance in another plant. and Traits, Cibus process. Even with the advent of GMOs, introduction ofApart from the elegance of editing the a new trait involved a cumbersome and time-consuminggenes related to a trait, precision gene process of doing hundreds of introductions to find theediting can reduce the time between right transgene and then back-crossing that gene into thean edit and a crop in the field to as most advanced hybrids. This took years and vast sumslittle as 18-24 months compared to up of money, and then the innovators had to negotiate theto 10-13 years with GMOs. complicated regulations that govern GMOs.This can be accomplished using Moreover, agriculture is traditionally a seasonal andnucleases (like CRISPRs and TALENs) often low margin business, which tends to make farmersin concert with a chemical construct even more risk averse. When confronted with a new seedcalled an oligonucleotide. All this that promises tolerance of herbicides, resistance to diseasetranslates to lower costs, bringing or a more robust yield, the farmer had to weigh the ben- the price for a new trait down from efits against the possibility that the unknown agronomic$135 million (from the GMO method) aspects of the new seed might not fit his or her land. Butto less than a tenth of this cost. The what if a farmer could get a seed with a new trait withoutadvantage of reduced time and cost sacrificing the hard-won agronomics incorporated into hiswill allow smaller biotechs to com-or her existing crop?pete and partner with the agchem Instead of getting a new landline, the farmer wouldgiants, and a new paradigm for seed be adding new features to a smartphone. For the farmerproducers will be born at a time the new features would be accretive, promising addi- when the world needs it most. 64GERMINATION.CA MARCH 2020'