Green light hoped for gene-edited rice

The Star

20-06-2025

Since 2021, several scientists have been developing new genetically edited rice varieties with targeted traits, such as resistance to disease and tolerance to climate challenges like extreme heat and drought.
Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Mardi) principal research officer Dr Zulkifli Ahmad Seman said they now had a potential gene-edited (GE) padi line currently undergoing the screening phase.
He said their research so far had shown that blight would only affect 11% of the leaves of GE padi.
Laid side by side in a research glasshouse at Mardi in Serdang, Selangor, the two padi leaves look alike at first glance.
But one leaf is almost all yellow, a sign of bacterial blight – a disease that has afflicted Malaysian rice fields for decades and caused losses amounting to hundreds of thousands of ringgit.
The other is almost entirely green, save for a faint yellowing at the tip.
It comes from a rice line Zulkifli and his team edited using CRISPR-CS9 technology.
Zulkifli showing a photo of the padi leaves that are disease-resistant.
'So with the host, the protein (blight) can't attach because of where we have mutated it.
'When it cannot attach, that is where it will stop,' he told Bernama at Mardi headquarters.
The line is not just a scientific breakthrough; it is the first GE plant for Mardi and Malaysia.
But as Zulkifli's team approaches the fifth generation of the disease-resistant seed, they are coming closer to another challenge: Malaysia's regulatory grey zone.
Grey zone
Malaysia is one of Asia's highest per capita consumers of rice, but it does not grow enough padi.
In 2023, per capita consumption was 76.7kg per year, according to Agriculture and Food Security Ministry.
The rice production numbers have decreased from 2022, showing a 4.7% decrease from 2.28 million tonnes in 2022 to 2.18 million tonnes in 2023.
According to the same statistics, local rice production can only meet 56.2% of local demand, leaving the country vulnerable to price shocks and supply disruptions.
For padi farmers like 57-year-old Puteh Hassan in Kedah, the worsening weather patterns and recurring disease outbreaks have made harvests increasingly uncertain.
'There was one season we were badly hit (by bacterial blight). We lost 60% of our padi,' she said over the phone.
Zulkifli's research could save Puteh's field from another disastrous attack.
But the issue putting the research in limbo is whether current regulations on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) should apply to GE crops.
Unlike GMOs, GE crops do not contain foreign DNA.
Instead, they involve precise deletions or tweaks to existing genes – a process some researchers argue is closer to accelerated natural selection.
As such, scientists and biotechnologists argue they cannot be judged according to the same standards.
So far, the regulatory framework has not caught up.
Malaysia's Biosafety Act 2007 governs GMOs but when the law was passed, there was no effective way to edit the genome.
The scientists are in a quandary – they are doing ground- breaking work with the potential to help the nation feed its people, but will their GE rice see the light of day?
Yellow fields
Puteh remembers the season her padi fields turned yellow.
Managing her own padi field for the past 15 years, she has seen plenty of bad years.
She still remembers when the blight wiped out almost all of her income in 2019.
'I lost one tonne of padi that season,' said Puteh.
She had hoped the ensuing seasons would be better but her yields either improved only marginally or got worse.
In recent years, extreme temperatures and sudden floods have become more common.
On top of that, blight is still there.
Bacterial blight, caused by Xanthomonas oryzae, spreads quickly in flooded padi fields and thrives in warm, humid environments like Malaysia's.
It browns padi leaves and cuts grain production, leaving farmers with rotten fields.
At the same time, farmers are growing less rice.
According to National Association of Smallholders Malaysia president Adzmi Hassan, many smallholders have shifted to more lucrative crops like oil palm.
He said Malaysia should not just look at technology, it should also look at encouraging padi farmers to grow the staple crop.
One way would be to ensure there is a consistent and predictable yield year by year.
For two years in a row, beginning in the 2023/24 season, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) had predicted Malaysia's rice production would be below average.
The GE padi stands as a potential solution.
Until they get more information, these researchers are operating under the assumption that their GE rice will not be subject to the same approval process that stymied past biotech efforts involving GMO products.
But still, the fear is there.
The scientists remember efforts to conduct open field trials of a pesticide-resistant strain of GMO padi in Perlis in 2019.
Nearby communities and environmentalists protested against holding the trials.
In the end, the project was shelved.
Mardi senior research officer Dr Mohd Waznu Adlyl said Malaysia should follow Japan's and a few other countries' lead, which exempts certain gene- edited crops from GMO regulation if no foreign DNA is present.
These countries treat GE crops as normal crops as the gene- editing process works just like natural mutations, only faster.
Mohd Waznul says the benefits of growing the new GE variety outweighs any potential risks.
He also said the benefits outweighed any potential risks.
'We hope this rice that we produce can somehow help our (scientists) to produce new varieties because there are many issues, like climate change and new emerging pests,' he said.
But many see GE foods and GMOs as the same.
Third World Network biosafety programme coordinator Lim Li Ching was prepared to start a protest should GE crops be allowed to stage open field trials without any oversight.
'Just because we can do it doesn't mean we should,' she said in an online interview from her home in the UK.
While CRISPR technology might work within a plant's own genome, she warned that it could bypass the slow, regulated nature of evolutionary change – introducing traits or gene interactions that might not have na­­tural precedents.
She added that even seemingly minor edits could cause unintended effects at molecular level.
CRISPR-Cas9 is a gene-editing tool that allows scientists to make precise changes to an organism's DNA.
In plants, the process involves several steps, including causing a break or deletion of a DNA strand, and allowing the plant's natural repair mechanisms to fix the break.
This method enables the development of crops with improved traits, such as disease resistance, drought tolerance, and increased yield.
Global GE or GMO
While Malaysia grapples with regulatory uncertainties, other countries are moving forward with GE crops.
India has released two genome-edited rice varieties aimed at enhancing yield and resilience against environmental stresses.
These varieties were developed using genome-editing techniques that allow for precise modifications in the plant's DNA.
In contrast, Mexico has taken a more cautious approach.
In March, the Mexican government amended its constitution to prohibit the use of genetically modified corn seeds, citing concerns over biosafety and the protection of native corn varieties.
The ban just applies to GMOs, however, not GE foods.
For Malaysia, the adoption of GE crops like Mardi's blight- resistant rice could play a crucial role in enhancing food security.
However, without clear regulatory guidelines, these innovations may remain confined to research facilities.
Malaysia has set the target of a rice self-sufficiency rate of 80% by 2030, but without intervention, be it via technology or other methods, the nation will likely not meet its goal anytime soon.