<aside> ☀️ Hey, I’m Rachel! (Website | LinkedIn). I wear a lot of different hats; gr 12 high school student, marathoner + ultra runner, podcast host, writer, urban farmer; but the thread tying this hat together is my passion for solving problems. I am driven by my north star of making an impact in the poorest communities in the world. I deeply care about the problem of food insecurity, lack of access to enough nutritious food and poverty, and want to dedicate my life to making strides to help solve this problem.

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Using CRISPR-Cas9 to increase maize yields by 5X in Malawi

Talk I gave at SXSW about my transgenic maize project. I cover a route cause of the problem I’m trying to solve and the technicalities of my proposal.

Talk I gave at SXSW about my transgenic maize project. I cover a route cause of the problem I’m trying to solve and the technicalities of my proposal.

The problem: maize yields are 5X lower in Malawi than in the USA

[60%](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12571-011-0140-5#:~:text=Maize is one of the,people in 94 developing countries.) of the population of Malawi rely on maize for the majority of their daily calories and yearly income, meaning that the maize crop is incredibly important to all of Malawi.

After researching agricultural systems and maize farming in Malawi for several months I learned that maize yields are 5X lower in Malawi than in the USA. This is a massively underrated problem that is not getting enough attention. Because of low maize yields in Malawi, 300 million maize farmers are stuck in an endless poverty loop of low yields and low incomes. These small scale maize farmers represent the 54% of the Malawian population that live in extreme poverty and face dangerous levels of food insecurity.

Why is no one talking about this?!

As I researched deeper and deeper into this problem of super low agricultural productivity in Malawi, I was surprised that there was almost no work being done to increase yields in Malawi.

Yes the UN annually puts $540 Billion into agriculture, but this money doesn’t seem to produce real results. It goes towards infrastructure like irrigation, increased access to fertilizer and pesticides. And while these are important issues, they don’t actually solve the route cause of the problem: that maize farming in Malawi is incredibly inefficient.

So for three months I researched how maize farming in Malawi works, and discovered the largest inefficiencies with maize that directly correlates to it’s low yields.

1. Maize is a very “thirsty” plant and needs 30% more water than wheat. With climate change pushing average temperatures higher and higher, and droughts becoming more and more frequent in Malawi especially, maize yields are decreasing. Maize yields decrease by 70% when available water decreases by 10%! And the majority of small scale maize farmers do not have irrigation infrastructure, so the maize doesn’t get enough water and yields drop.
2. Pests in developing countries cause yield losses up to 50% — the equivalent of annual revenue losses up to $0.9–1.1 billion for small-scale farmers across Africa. Most African farmers cannot afford the expensive pesticides that would protect their crops from these pests, so instead, they are forced to suffer the consequences of major crop losses. (The notorious maize pests in Africa include the maize stalk borer, fall armyworm and bore worms.)
3. Maize has a very long grow rate compared to other crops like tomatoes and lettuce. On average maize takes 3X more time from planting to harvest than most plants. The longer the grow time, the more resources are needed, which makes maize hard to care for especially in Malawi where agricultural resources are very limited.
4. Maize is a crop that is very sensitive to weather changes and hot temperatures. Each degree day that is spent above 30°C reduces the final crop yield by 1%. Under drought conditions, crop yields are reduced by 1.7% a day. Maize is also very sensitive to changes in soil composition and disruption near plant roots, which results in a 17% reduction in crop yields per year.

My idea: figuring out how to do more with less