The Potential Impacts and Barriers of CRISPR in African Agriculture

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) has the potential to contribute to the solutions of problems encountered in food production globally, especially in low-income countries across Africa. Feasible beneficiaries of CRISPR gene editing are reduced food insecurity, reduced environmental damage in agricultural production, increased nutritional value in crops, increased producer profits, increased food security, increased yields, and reduced yield variability. The potential of CRISPR to combat global food insecurity and its controversy amongst consumers, producers and regulatory bodies prior to its commercial release highlights the importance of better understanding how (which traits and which crops) CRISPR could be implemented in agriculture across Africa. This study gathered the thoughts of 178 PhD plant scientists who focused their work on Africa about how CRISPR could be implemented across the continent. Results suggest that drought resistance, insect resistance, fungus resistance and virus resistance as the functions CRISPR will most likely focus on, specifically in maize, soybean, and cassava. Plant scientists thought the legal issues were the largest impediment to widespread adoption of CRISPR across Africa. This study is the first of what will likely be many to better understand how CRISPR could be implemented in African agriculture, which crops could benefit the most, which traits have the greatest likelihood of success and what the major barriers to adoption are. A better understanding of these important issues can help African policy makers, producers, consumers, and the broader agricultural scientific community make informed decisions moving forward in an effort to combat food insecurity.