{"id":169595,"date":"2023-08-13T00:23:43","date_gmt":"2023-08-13T05:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/the-worlds-first-genetically-engineered-wheat-is-here"},"modified":"2023-08-13T00:23:43","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T05:23:43","slug":"the-worlds-first-genetically-engineered-wheat-is-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/the-worlds-first-genetically-engineered-wheat-is-here","title":{"rendered":"The World\u2019s First Genetically Engineered Wheat Is Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

In October 2020, Argentina approved<\/a> the world\u2019s first genetically engineered wheat for cultivation and consumption. Production expanded<\/a> dramatically in 2021, and will continue to expand in 2022, after Argentina received regulatory approval in late 2021 for exports to Brazil, a major consumer of Argentina\u2019s wheat.<\/p>\n

The lessons from Argentina\u2019s experience are important as other countries decide whether they want to follow suit. Argentina\u2019s genetically engineered, drought-tolerant wheat \u2014 named HB4 \u2014 could have large environmental benefits, but other countries\u2019 choices will determine their scale.<\/p>\n

Argentina is increasingly struggling with drought and saw an opportunity for HB4 wheat to help stabilize production and revenue. Yields have been steadily decreasing since 2017, partially due to drought, with the 2020\/21 season<\/a> yields the second-lowest in ten years. Yields in the 2021\/22 season<\/a> bounced back thanks to sufficient rainfall at critical times. HB4 wheat, genetically engineered to be drought resistant, can help protect against such variability by maintaining high yields even under drought conditions. HB4\u2019s drought resistance gene comes from sunflowers, so it qualifies as transgenic \u2014 containing genes from a different species \u2014 and therefore as bioengineered, genetically modified, or a GMO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In October 2020, Argentina approved the world\u2019s first genetically engineered wheat for cultivation and consumption. Production expanded dramatically in 2021, and will continue to expand in 2022, after Argentina received regulatory approval in late 2021 for exports to Brazil, a major consumer of Argentina\u2019s wheat. The lessons from Argentina\u2019s experience are important as other countries [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169595\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}