A wheat plantation that used to be virgin Amazon rainforest near Santarem, Brazil. April 20, 2013
Ironically, the world population is growing rapidly—stats indicate about 10 billion people will be on the planet by 2050, requiring ever more food; but the amount of cultivable land is limited. Warmer temperatures have extended growth seasons in some areas and brought drought and pest to others. So, plant-breeders are experimenting with gene editing and speed breeding by tricking crops into flowering early, the goal being to create plant factories on a massive scale