Food & agriculture · around 2040

C4 photosynthesis in rice

Projection

Rice rewired to photosynthesise like maize, yielding far more grain per hectare.

C4 plants concentrate CO2 around their key enzyme and use water and nitrogen more efficiently. Engineering the trait into rice could raise yields substantially for billions who depend on it.

Why it’s plausible: A long-running international consortium has installed parts of the pathway; it depends on engineering leaf anatomy as well as enzymes, which is not yet achieved.

See it in the living treeWikipedia