Future agriculture
The dual pressures of population growth and extreme climate events pose significant challenges to global food security and the sustainability of agricultural ecosystems.
According to projections from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the global population is expected to approach 10 billion by 2050. Consequently, agricultural productivity will need to increase by approximately 70% to meet the growing demand for food, feed, fiber, and bioenergy (https://globalagriculturalproductivity.org/).
However, traditional agricultural production models struggle to address the challenges posed by modern food demands and climate change. Relying on limited arable land, they face difficulties in overcoming issues such as heavy metal contamination in soil, pesticide and fertilizer residues, and inefficient crop photosynthesis. There is an urgent need for innovative solutions to enhance food production and resource utilization efficiency.
From 2011 to 2020, synthetic biology experienced rapid development in the agricultural sector, with breakthroughs in several key technologies. Research gradually expanded from fundamental studies to practical applications. Since the advent of CRISPR-Cas9 technology in 2013, its application in rice and wheat has continuously advanced, evolving into multi-gene editing, which has significantly improved the efficiency and precision of crop trait improvement. Concurrently, the maturity of genome sequencing technology has provided new platforms for complex genomic operations, as seen in research on wheat and quinoa.
The development of artificial chromosome technology has propelled research into polygenic traits. For example, a gene stacking system created based on Bxb1-mediated recombination can be used to transfer desirable traits from transgenic plants to difficult-to-transform cultivated varieties. At the field level, nitrogen-fixing bacteria have been synthesized and successfully tested in the field, demonstrating the potential for artificial nodulation and nitrogen fixation in non-leguminous crops, which is expected to reduce fertilizer use by 50%.
Since 2021, synthetic biology in agriculture has progressively moved towards systemic integration, shifting its research focus from individual technological breakthroughs to platform construction and industrial transformation. Nations worldwide have successively implemented strategic deployments in agricultural synthetic biology.
Currently, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology is emerging as a critical trend. Digital prediction of plant-microbe interaction networks further optimizes the intelligent management of agricultural systems. AI applications in agriculture already encompass automation of agricultural equipment, digital pest detection, and the development of agricultural robots, significantly enhancing production efficiency. Meanwhile, CRISPR-Cas9-engineered tomatoes enriched with γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) have also entered the market. In the future, with continuous technological advancements and policy support, synthetic biology is expected to further drive the transformation of agricultural production systems towards intelligence and ecological sustainability.
