Over the past few years, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute has taken up the challenge to sequence additional starches that could make a significant difference in developing nations where corn and soybean are less important than such staples as foxtail millet, sorghum and cassava. Such crops, if engineered to be more nutritious, as well as cheaper to grow in large quantities, could combat hunger in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia.
Read the full Bloomberg View column. More information about the genome sequences of foxtail millet, sorghum and cassava, as well as other plants, is available on Phytozome.net