Scientists Issue Urgent Appeal to Boost the Nutritional Value of Crops

Climate change is accelerating the decline in the vitamin and mineral content of our food, warn 15 leading researchers from four continents – including Weizmann Institute’s Prof. Asaph Aharoni. This is not a distant threat. Already today, up to two-thirds of the world’s population does not get enough essential micronutrients – including folic acid, vitamin B2, calcium, iron and iodine – from their diet, a situation that can lead to what is known as “hidden hunger.” And more than 700 million people experience actual hunger, lacking sufficient calories to meet their basic nutritional needs. Recent studies suggest that these challenges are likely to worsen as climate change reduces the vitamin and mineral content of many food crops.

To confront this growing global threat, 15 leading scientists from four continents have issued an urgent call to enhance the nutritional quality of the world’s food supply. The initiative is led by Prof. Dominique Van Der Straeten of Ghent University in Belgium and Prof. Alisdair R. Fernie of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Germany. Among the contributors is Prof. Asaph Aharoni of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Plant and Environmental Sciences Department.

In a comprehensive review published in Nature, the researchers present a roadmap for protecting and improving the nutritional quality of crops in the face of climate change. They advocate the use of advanced genetic technologies – including CRISPR gene editing – to increase the vitamin and mineral content of crops while also making them more resilient to a changing climate.

Publisched in Nature