I would like to thank Anjana Ahuja and the FT for bringing this important topic to public attention, namely how the EU risks losing out on farming’s genomic reboot (Opinion, January 31).
Following in nature’s footsteps across millennia, farmers are breeding organisms to achieve enhancements and hybrid vigour. Such precision-bred organisms were inspired by nature, as shown by the mutations conferring resistance that are present in the sorghum plant you mention.
Hunger cannot wait for solutions to achieve this through generations of crossbreeding, given the tools to speed up the process exist now and are being used to treat human diseases.
Sandra Paulina Smieszek
Geneticist, Washington, DC
