Project Overview

We are developing a plan to address societal considerations and policies to enable the successful deployment of genome-edited crop plants that have enhanced carbon dioxide removal (CDR) properties.

The IGI is developing new CRD-optimized varieties of rice, but in order for these to have the desired impact at scale, they need to be adopted by the agricultural community. The advantage of using rice as a model crop for CDR is that rice is a grass, and its genome is closely related to other important grass crops such as sorghum, wheat, and corn, which facilitates the transfer of technology.

Starting with rice and sorghum, we are conducting a market assessment and launching a community engagement pilot using community-based participatory research and citizen assembly methods. We will leverage findings from the community engagement pilot and market assessment to develop a broader outreach effort for stakeholders in likely markets so we can integrate community needs into product design. We will use data such as the acreage of target crops being grown and exported, existing policies for genome edited products and a history of successful deployment of biotech products in each country to determine where to conduct field trials and outreach, and will engage with regulators to ensure that government incentive programs are aligned with desired outcome (e.g. the integration of gene edited crops into carbon credits programs).

Read more about the IGI's overall work on using CRISPR for carbon removal.