Wheat in heat: the 'crazy idea' that could combat food insecurity in Africa - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/mar/23/heat-tolerant-durum-wheat-crazy-idea-food-insecurity Wheat is really amazing, especially since they're doing this via crossbreeding instead of other GMO techniques.

Wasn't wheat one of things that greatly boosted our civilization? That is great idea.

Hate to be that guy, but hopefully this doesn't step on some CEO's greed somehow, because this is the last we'll hear of it if it does. But people don't actually profit off of widespread starvation in Africa, do they? It's just more of a matter of "we don't want to spare the expense"? 'Cuz this should be fine, then.

I mean, isn't that pretty much just a GMO technique.

I wouldn't consider it GMO mostly because it can happen by accident, and you don't really need any equipment to do it properly, just patience. But it's all semantics, some people consider cloning a type of Genetic Modification.

Yes it is, but because "GMO" by the layman has grown to mean something else, it's lost its basic meaning.

Honestly, the major problem that'll keep popping up is the lack of farm equipment/infrastructure too make the production viable in said areas. It also doesn't help when the majority of the population tends to be more about farming for sustenance over the production of surplus. Then you also have the lovely problem of governments which go full-retard and seize land from farmers that make use of said land... I'm looking at you Zimbabwe, and soon South Africa.

I wonder what delicious foods they'll be able to come up with

i dont think the crops are the problem, more like the governments and people in charge. Cough rhodesia cough

It differs from place to place. Sub-Saharan Africa just south of the desert has massive desertification problems as the Sahara slowly creeps southward across the continent. If there can be crops that can do well, let alone thrive in such an environment, it'll not just help feed people but also help the climate and ecology of the country.

No, but put a tiger and a lion together and look what happens.

Would never happen in the wild, though. I wouldn't consider something purposely put together and a result from it as an "accident" as you put it.

The definition for 'genetically modified organism' is actually quite specific and doesn't extend to crossbreeding and whatnot, it is only applied to things that have been the subject of genetic engineering techniques (crossbreeding isn't regarded as genetic engineering).

Why have I heard the evolution of corn from a type of grass some 1,500 years ago to the backbone of vegetable agriculture today as "GMO"?

I think that it's attributable to a misunderstanding of the term (which is quite common because the term itself is somewhat ambiguous, and often not defined in when being mentioned in the public sphere). GMOs require the insertion of foreign DNA into cells as part of the modification process, and this insertion has to be done by people, as it's the fact that it is done with a specific intention, and has a wider scope than natural processes, that makes GMOs special. Processes that involve genomes being altered, and foreign DNA being inserted into cells happen all the time in nature, but they're not really as special as what is done via genetic engineering. With regards to corn, which was selectively bred from grass to become what it is today, none of the processes applied to it or its ancestors involved genetic engineering (except for modern, genetically-engineered corn varieties that are known as such). People will often call selectively bred things GMOs in public debates to make a point about how genomes and stuff change all the time, however, that in itself is missing the point surrounding the debate about GMOs and their designation as GMOs.