Los Baños, Philippines
16 July 2026
Feeding a growing global population is no longer enough. Scientists say the next generation of crops must also deliver better nutrition while withstanding the increasing impacts of climate change.
An international team of researchers, including scientists from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), is calling for a fundamental shift in how crops are developed. Rather than pursuing higher yields, improved nutrition, and climate resilience as separate objectives, the researchers argue that future crop improvement must achieve all three simultaneously.
The need for this shift is becoming increasingly urgent. Although agriculture has dramatically increased food production in past decades, more than 700 million people remain undernourished, and more than two billion people suffer from deficiencies in essential vitamins and minerals—a form of malnutrition known as hidden hunger. Climate change is compounding these challenges by making food production more unpredictable and, under certain conditions, reducing the nutritional quality of staple crops.
According to the researchers, traditional crop improvement has largely focused on incremental improvements—whether increasing yields, improving tolerance to drought and heat, or enhancing specific nutrients. While these approaches have delivered major advances, addressing today's food systems challenges requires a more integrated strategy.
The researchers outline how advances in artificial intelligence, precision breeding, genome editing, and the use of crop genetic diversity can accelerate the development of crops that combine productivity, nutritional quality, and climate resilience. Together, these innovations offer new opportunities to strengthen food systems while improving both farmers’ livelihoods and consumer health.
"Eradicating all forms of hunger is one of the most challenging tasks of this century. By integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven discovery, precision genome editing, and climate-resilient breeding, the scientific community will be able to bridge the gap between crop productivity and human nutrition under climate change," said Dr. Nese Sreenivasulu, Principal Scientist at IRRI and one of the papers' authors.
The recommendations are presented in two newly published papers by an international consortium of scientists, including researchers from IRRI, Ghent University, and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology. The studies provide a roadmap for integrating nutrition, climate resilience, and productivity into future crop improvement and food systems research.
"The triple burden of climate change, declining productivity, and hidden hunger cannot be addressed in isolation. These two studies show that crop improvement is no longer about optimizing one trait at a time or choosing between productivity, nutrition, and resilience. It is about integrating all three - a sum of the parts approach - to develop crops that deliver for farmers, consumers, and the planet," said Dr. Yvonne Pinto, Director General of IRRI.
References:
Tiozon, R. N., Jr., Fernie, A. R., & Sreenivasulu, N. (2026). Reconfiguring biofortification strategies to transform food systems and address micronutrient deficiency of the 21st century. Journal of Integrative Plant Biology, 00, 1–37. https://doi.org/10.1111/jipb.70305
Van Der Straeten, D., Bulut, M., Cao, D., Aharoni, A., Bouis, H., Granell, A., Gruissem, W., Møller, B. L., Martin, C., Puchta, H., Sreenivasulu, N., Tissier, A., Tripathi, L., Van Montagu, M., & Fernie, A. R. (2026). Genetic technologies to enhance crop nutritional value under climate change. Nature, 654, 890–905. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10593-6
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