The NSF-funded and Cornell-based Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems (CROPPS) has been selected to help shape a new international effort to reimagine the future of food systems through the CIFAR Arrell Future of Food Initiative, a multi-year effort aimed at addressing mounting pressures on the global food system, including rising food insecurity, biodiversity loss and amplified climate shocks.
CROPPS and their collaborators at the University of Edinburgh, members of the ARIA Synthetic Plants program, will convene with leading scientists in the fields of synthetic biology, engineering, crop science and the social sciences for a two-day workshop to address how the transdisciplinary field of Programmable Plant Systems can be applied to the future of plant breeding and agronomy - the science of soil management and crop production.
Margaret Frank, assistant professor at Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a co-principal investigator at CROPPS, collaborators Arjun Khakhar from Colorado State University (also a CROPPS affiliate), and Robert Smith from the University of Edinburgh, will co-lead the team during this international convening.
"CIFAR is a remarkably forward-thinking organization that brings together extraordinary minds to address some of the most important questions facing science and humanity," Frank said. "The selection of Programmable Plant Systems as one of the 'Future of Foods' inaugural workshops reflects the promise of this emerging field to help tackle the complex challenges facing our food supply."
Teams were charged with reimagining how we grow, share and sustain food in a rapidly changing world. As CROPPS integrates plant biology, engineering, computation and social and ethical perspectives, it is positioned to ask broader questions about how programmable plants fit within food systems, said Elizabeth Jones, assistant director for research at CROPPS.
"Because CROPPS was built as an interdisciplinary institute, we're able to make progress beyond what any single field can tackle alone, allowing us to think about programmable plants as part of a broader food production system," she said.
Programmable plant systems enable a two-way dialogue with plants, giving them the capability to signal when they need nitrogen or water and allowing researchers to tell plants when to adjust growth, such as conserving resources during drought or delaying flowering. The team's selection places programmable plant systems at the center of a global conversation about how to responsibly deploy emerging technologies to meet future food challenges.
"We are building the plants, connections and analytics that make this communication possible and helping farmers make critical decisions to secure our food supply," Frank said. "As this research is still in its early stages, it's an ideal time to understand public and stakeholder perspectives, so that we can respond thoughtfully and enable the best possible path to adoption."
According to Frank, CROPPS' partnership with ARIA-funded scientists strengthens global coordination in a rapidly developing field and creates a unique opportunity to bring together diverse scientific minds and foster a growing global community.
"Both CROPPS and ARIA have embraced the concept of programmable plant systems as central to the future of agricultural research," she said. "While the two groups are pursuing different use-cases that target separate agricultural goals, this workshop is an opportunity to identify shared priorities, and to align language and research goals that lay the groundwork for the next generation of collaborative proposals in this emerging field."
The Discovery Workshops are intended to spark new collaborations across institutions, disciplines and sectors that might not otherwise intersect, according to CIFAR President and CEO Stephen J. Toope who said the seven teams were selected for their bold, integrated approaches.
"The sheer complexity of the global food crisis demands collaboration across traditional boundaries," Toope said in a news release. "I congratulate these exceptional researchers on reaching this critical milestone. Their innovative ideas, ranging from programmable plants to child-first policy frameworks, promise to unlock new pathways to knowledge that will shape a healthier, more equitable future for all."
Stephen D'Angelo is the communications manager for biological systems at Cornell Research and Innovation.
