By Blake Jackson
The National Science Foundation-funded Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (CROPPS), based at Cornell University, has been chosen to contribute to a major global initiative focused on transforming food systems.
The effort, led by the CIFAR Arrell Future of Food Initiative, aims to tackle growing challenges such as food insecurity, biodiversity decline and climate-related disruptions.
CROPPS, alongside collaborators from the University of Edinburgh and participants in the ARIA Synthetic Plants program, will join leading experts in synthetic biology, engineering, crop science and social sciences for a two-day workshop.
The event will explore how programmable plant systems can advance plant breeding and agronomy, the science of soil management and crop production.
Margaret Frank, associate professor at Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and co-principal investigator at CROPPS, will co-lead the initiative with Arjun Khakhar of Colorado State University and Robert Smith of the University of Edinburgh.
“CIFAR is a remarkably forward-thinking organization that brings together extraordinary minds to address some of the most important questions facing science and humanity,” Frank said.
“The selection of Programmable Plant Systems as one of the ‘Future of Foods’ inaugural workshops reflects the promise of this emerging field to help tackle the complex challenges facing our food supply.”
The initiative encourages teams to rethink how food is produced, distributed and sustained. Elizabeth Jones, assistant director for research at CROPPS, noted that the center’s interdisciplinary approach allows researchers to examine how programmable plants can fit into broader food systems.
“Because CROPPS was built as an interdisciplinary institute, we’re able to make progress beyond what any single field can tackle alone, allowing us to think about programmable plants as part of a broader food production system,” Jones said.
Programmable plant systems enable two-way communication with crops, allowing plants to signal needs such as water or nutrients, while enabling researchers to guide plant responses under stress conditions.
“We are building the plants, connections and analytics that make this communication possible and helping farmers make critical decisions to secure our food supply,” Frank said.
Photo Credit: getty-images-eric-ferguson
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