Gene editing applications, opportunities and challenges for crop improvement in Africa a review

Abstract

Gene editing, particularly CRISPR/Cas-based new genomic techniques (NGTs), offers significant opportunities for accelerated crop improvement in developing African countries, ensuring food security, livelihoods, climate resilience, and economic growth. This review critically evaluates the scientific basis, applications, breeding value, technical capacity, and regulatory developments of gene editing in major African crops. Recent evidence shows that it has shown significant progress in improving disease resistance, nutrient use efficiency, climate resilience, grain quality, and yield traits in teff, maize, wheat, banana, cassava, and sorghum and other important crops with active research in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, South Africa, and Ethiopia. Key findings highlights CRISPR/Cas9 remains the dominant editing platform, while base editing, prime editing, and multiplex genome engineering are expanding opportunities for precise trait modification in major and orphan crops. Evidence to date shows measurable gains include improved resistance to banana Xanthomonas wilt through MusaDMR6 editing, enhanced cassava disease resistance, and drought-tolerant ARGOS8-edited maize. However, most African gene-editing pipelines remain at pre-release or at reserach stage because of limited transformation and phenotyping capacity, fragmented regulatory implementation, inadequate funding, and social and institutional constraints and weak seed-delivery systems. Compared with product-based regulatory approaches in Argentina, Brazil, Japan, and the United Kingdom, African framework remains less harmonized and enabling. Future priorities focus on harmonizing SDN-1/SDN-2 regulatory pathways, participatory public engagement mechanisms, strengthening biosafety and research infrastructure, applying AI-assisted guide RNA design, pangenomics, machine learning, epigenome editing, and de novo domestication, and expanding research on orphan crops such as finger millet, cowpea, and enset that underpin food security but remain under-researched. By focusing on crop-specific examples and well-documented breeding targets, this review aims to provide a scientifically grounded perspective on how gene editing can complement conventional and emerging precision breeding approaches to support sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture in Africa.