Scientists Are Engineering Crops to Be Drought-Resistant: The Pros and Cons of That

Reader Contribution by Kayla Matthews
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Droughts can increase food scarcity issues and compromise farmers’ profitability. Also, it’s likely to happen more often than usual due to climate change. A study of 571 European cities found most of them would experience more river flooding and drought conditions than usual because of environmental changes.

However, scientists recently made significant progress in engineering drought-resistant crops. They achieved that with tobacco by altering the expression of a gene found in all plants, causing them to close the pores in leaves that usually let water escape.

The researchers’ work resulted in 25 percent better water usage in the crops and did not affect yields. They believe that in drought conditions, these modified crops will grow faster and yield more than those not modified for resilience against the lack of water.

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