The American giant of the Mars Chocolate bars aims to improve cocoa production using genomic selection. The Agrifood Group recently concluded a license agreement with the American Biotechnology Pareleswise Company, with the aim of developing cocoa trees more resistant to plants’ diseases and climatic hazards, announced in pairs in a press release.
This agreement will give access to agricultural genetic publication tools, backed by CRISPR technology, which allows precisely to modify the genome of a kind of plant. The Mars Group “aspires to develop this advanced plant selection technology to improve cocoa production” to help deal with the pressures that cocoa suffers worldwide, due to climatic variability, plants’ diseases and environmental stress, “said the press release.
Crispr Technology “has the potential to improve crops to support and strengthen global supply chains,” said Carl Jones, director of Plant Sciences of Mars, in the same press release. The American Food Group portfolio is dominated today by chocolate products, embodied for its main M&M brands, Malteers, Milky Way, Snickers, Twix, Balisto, Bounty or the homonymous brand of Mars.
More resistant to climatic risks
The “new genomic techniques” (called NBT according to their acronym in English) publish the genetic team of organisms, through CRISPR technology, the famous “DNA scissors” at the origin of a Nobel Prize, activating directed mutations. These mutations are carried out without external addition, unlike genetically modified organisms (GMO), where a “strange” gene of another species is incorporated. The NBT allow, in a way, to accelerate the selection of the plant.
The NBT wake up a certain interest in the agricultural world. Companies and researchers work on the development of plants more resistant to climatic risks, resist better parasites, allow reducing fertilizer amounts or consuming less water. However, the subject opposes fierce defenders, which sees it as essential technologies to deal with climate change, and convinced of opponents, which denounce a hidden return of the OGM.
Unlike the United States, the European Union has not yet given the Green Light to the NBT, which still remains in the research stage of the former continent. In June 2024, Member States resigned, for lack of majority, to decide on a text that disregulates these genetic biotechnologies.
Source: BFM TV
