As the warming climate makes it more difficult — and more resource-intense — to produce food, scientists are relying on innovation and evolving breeding methods, such as gene editing, to create new varieties of plants designed to thrive in a changing climate.

Gene-edited crops, such as drought-tolerant corn and flood-tolerant rice, could help provide food in intense weather conditions and, help to solve some of the challenges of climate change.

“As the globe continues to warm, breeding new crop varieties will be essential to achieving food security,” wrote Nazimi Açıkgöz, an emeritus plant breeding professor from Ege University, Izmir, Turkey.