The current wisdom in agricultural innovation is to engineer crops to better withstand the effects of climate change. But will this help combat world poverty? The prospect of soaring food prices and global warming has brought food security and climate-change concerns to the top of the international agenda. Agriculture now faces the double challenge of dealing with the impact of climate change at the same time as increasing production to meet the food demands of a global population projected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050.