Drought - partly caused by global warming - is becoming a worldwide plague. The amount of drought-affected land has doubled since the late 1970s. So genetic engineers at universities around the world, as well as at companies like Monsanto and DuPont's Pioneer Hi-Bred, are racing to develop drought-resistant crops, from corn to canola, based on a single "drought gene."The first crops could become commercially available in about four years. Performance Plants of Canada is tweaking plants to speed up their water preservation processes as soon as water becomes scarce. At the University of California, Davis, scientists have engineered tobacco plants to hold on to their leaves when drought hits. They picked tobacco because it has large leaves but say the technique should work with many food crops, too.

Genetically modified foods are anathema to many environmental groups, which worry they're dangerous and have been oversold to the public. Nevertheless, some scientists say that transgenic crops that require only a modicum of water could help whet the appetite for GM foods - especially in hard-hit regions of Africa. -TG

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