Race against food rot: How AI and gene editing could slash fruit and vegetable waste Juliet Wilcox | October 28, 2026

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2026/10/28/race-against-food-rot-how-ai-and-gene-editing-could-slash-fruit-and-vegetable-waste/ Every year, between a quarter and half of all the fruits and vegetables grown on Earth never reach a hungry mouth. They rot in transit, succumb to fungal disease, or simply age past the point of sale, wasting billions of dollars along with the water, land, labor and energy that went into producing them. A sweeping new review published in Current Research in Food Science argues that this chronic hemorrhage of food is finally meeting its match, as artificial intelligence and modern biotechnology converge to transform postharvest handling from a reactive scramble against decay into a predictive, precision-driven science.