CRISPR/Cas9 System

CRISPR/Cas9 is a technology that allows scientists to edit and change an organism’s genome or DNA.  CRISPR is associated with many different scientific fields and has made genome editing quicker, less expensive, highly accurate, and highly efficient, more so than any other DNA editing technology before it.(What Are Genome Editing and CRISPR-Cas9?)  The value of this in agriculture is the ability to edit a crop’s DNA to ensure that the farmer who plants it can get higher yields. This has a lot of implications for agriculture especially with the global population rising, and farmers not being able to produce enough food for everyone.  For example, if a crops DNA could be edited to be drought resistant and use less water, or thrive on nutrients in a different type of soil, it leads to plants that can survive and be planted in a variety of geographic locations. If farmers can get higher yields out of their crops or grow different crops it is a win for them because they have the possibility of generating more revenue, and a win for society, so the need for food can be met.     

Source:

 “What Are Genome Editing and CRISPR-Cas9?.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/genomicresearch/genomeediting.

Leave a Reply