The cutting-edge genomics technology behind this strawberry variety presents an opportunity to transform the US$ 12 trillion agriculture1 industry
Singapore-based agri-genomics firm, Singrow which developed a proprietary genomics technology platform, has recently unveiled the world’s first climate-resilient strawberry variety. The novel strawberry variety is the first application of this transformative technology. The company is currently developing other crop segments that will address food security challenges around the world, especially in Asia and Africa, that were impacted by climate change.
The success of the novel strawberry variety and other innovations can be a gamechanger in this global fight against food insecurity and malnutrition.
These new growing methods that are based on advanced genomics science will help create nutrient-dense crop varieties that are resilient to drought and disease.
Seasonal strawberries traditionally grown in temperate climate are exported across the world to Southeast Asia, leading to the fruit being expensive in the region. More importantly, the exports leave a huge carbon footprint. With its climate-resilient and high-yield producing qualities, Singrow Strawberries can now be grown at scale in tropical countries, breaking seasonal and temperature barriers and unlocking huge potential for growers while also reducing costs for consumers.
“Singrow is the first company to successfully utilise genomics technology to develop a sustainable commercial strawberry variety that can grow in tropical climate such as Singapore and Southeast Asia. The success of this strawberry variety is the culmination of several years of research and we are excited to share this announcement with the global agricultural community,” said Dr. Bao Shengjie, CEO and Chief Scientist at Singrow.
Singrow uses advanced genomics technology that leverages deep understanding of plant genomes to improve crop nutrition and yield with varieties that are also disease and climate resilient. These methods are more productive than conventional breeding. Numerous benefits of this technology have led to increasing adoption across the globe as can be seen in China’s recent approval of gene-edited crops2, and the planting of nutrient-enriched “Golden Rice” in the Philippines3.
The scalable technology presents a significant opportunity for the agriculture industry as it can be applied to many staple crops that are facing challenges brought about by climate change. Singrow has started work on producing new crop varieties via the same technology and is working on expanding the list of produce to other crop segments such as rice, corn, sustainable palm oil and other staple vegetables that form a huge part of everyday diet.
Dr. Bao concluded, “Warmer temperatures caused by climate change has had significant impact on food production. We believe that molecular and genomics crop-breeding technologies is the future for agriculture and we are proud to invent the future of agriculture in Singapore and tackle the toughest problems to secure the future of food.”
