Gene editing could move closer to practical application in India's millet sector as ICRISAT advances CRISPR-based crop research aimed at improving agricultural resilience, nutrition and productivity.

Nature India reports that the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in Hyderabad has secured access to the CRISPR-Cas9 patent portfolio jointly held by Corteva Agriscience and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The non-exclusive licence enables ICRISAT researchers to use the technology across mandate crops including millets, sorghum, chickpea, pigeon pea, groundnut and other crops.

For millet agriculture, some of the most significant developments are already moving through ICRISAT's research pipeline. The institute has developed gene-edited sorghum with tolerance to Striga, a destructive parasitic weed affecting cereal production, alongside traits aimed at strengthening climate resilience.

ICRISAT has also developed pearl millet with improved nutritional characteristics and longer shelf life. However, these developments should not yet be described as commercially available varieties. Nature India reports that the crops remain subject to phenotypic validation as well as regulatory and varietal-release procedures before they can reach cultivation in India and Africa.

The technology could be particularly valuable where researchers have identified well-defined genetic targets. Scientists interviewed by Nature caution, however, that complex characteristics such as drought and heat tolerance are controlled by numerous genes, regulatory networks and interactions between genetics and the environment. CRISPR therefore complements rather than replaces conventional and genomics-assisted crop breeding.

Multiplex genome editing, which enables scientists to modify several genes or genomic locations simultaneously, represents one potential approach for addressing more complex characteristics. The fundamental challenge remains identifying combinations of genes capable of delivering stable and agriculturally meaningful improvements.

India also requires gene-edited varieties to undergo established varietal evaluation before commercial release. Nature India reports that candidate varieties are evaluated through multi-location trials across different agroecological environments, allowing their performance to be compared with parent varieties.

The potential implications extend beyond crop genetics. Under the ICRISAT arrangement, gene-edited products could ultimately be distributed through partners to smallholder farming communities while remaining subject to Indian laws and regulations. The article also highlights seed multiplication, affordability, farmer awareness, extension services and effective distribution as important factors determining whether scientific advances translate into farm-level benefits.

For the millet sector, the development demonstrates how advanced crop biotechnology is being applied to challenges extending from parasitic weeds and climate stress to nutrition and grain shelf life.

The next critical stage will be demonstrating that these traits perform consistently outside laboratory conditions and successfully completing the regulatory and varietal-release pathways required before farmers can cultivate them.