One of the main challenges facing the world of agriculture is that it is simply not profitable enough. Fields are dying in the developed world. Farmers across the globe are struggling to grow and sell crops. Food shortages are a real threat.
A big reason for these troubles is the fact that many crops must be harvested by hand, which is labor-intensive and costly.
If that sounds a bit too scientific, BetterSeeds CEO and founder Ido Margalit points to one common, successful example – ketchup.
“Without one genetic trait that was discovered in tomatoes a few decades ago, we wouldn’t have had ketchup or tomato concentrate industries. Because how is it that you pay so little money for ketchup that is made from so many kilograms of tomatoes?”
The answer, Margalit says, lies in the development of industrial tomatoes.
Regular tomatoes grow on vine trellises and can’t be harvested by machine. The discovery of a certain genetic trait enabled tomatoes to grow in bush form in regular fields, easily harvested by machine. This lowered costs so that we can get ketchup for a reasonable price.
“Pickle companies have been desperately looking for a similar trait that will turn cucumbers, like tomatoes, into something that can be grown on the ground in the field,” Margalit notes. “We found the gene that can be edited using CRISPR to enable growing it in the field.”