ISRAEL - Disease-Resistant Wheat
An international research team that includes researchers from Tel Aviv University isolated three disease-resistance wheat genes from wild grasses, creating resistance to rust diseases that cause severe damage to global wheat yields.
Today’s escalating climate crisis creates an urgent need to produce wheat varieties that can thrive in extreme environmental and climatic conditions while overcoming pests and diseases.
Wheat supplies about a fifth of all calories and proteins consumed by humanity, and as much as half in some parts of the world.
ICCR director Prof. Amir Sharon explained that the new technologies can be used to isolate genes for other beneficial properties as well.
“Certain traits of wild plants have already been incorporated into cultivated wheat over the years, but this great genetic potential remained mostly untapped, since—until recently—it took more than a decade to isolate a single gene,” he added.
-www.jpost.com, 12 September 2022
Arno's Commentary
The five largest wheat exporters in the world are Russia, the EU, Australia, the US, and Ukraine, in that order. According to Statista.com, global wheat production continues to grow. For the year 2000, it was 582 million metric tons; for 2022, that increased to 781. When taking these statistics seriously, one realizes that production continues to increase dramatically, not to mention the yield per hectare (or acre). Nevertheless, a number of diseases have hindered the production of wheat, primarily in Africa. Here again, we see: Israel to the rescue, with disease-resistant wheat. Research professors Amir Sharon and Dr. Arava Shatil Cohen have developed new technology by isolating genes, thereby enabling them to come up with even more disease-resistant seed.
Revelation 6:6 reads: “A measure of wheat for a penny.” A clearer translation says, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages.” We are reminded that this “penny” was equal to the average wage for one day—usually 12 hours according to Matthew 20:2.
Can we expect famine? Again, the answer is: famine has always occurred, is occurring now, and will occur in the future.
Arno Froese is the executive director of Midnight Call Ministries and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed prophetic magazines Midnight Call and News From Israel. He has authored a number of well-received books, and has sponsored many prophecy conferences in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. His extensive travels have contributed to his keen insight into Bible prophecy, as he sees it from an international perspective.
