They’re About To Spray RNA on Our Food—And Yes It "Replicates"
Self-Replicating RNA Is Coming to Your Dinner Plate Altering Our Food For Generations
RNA in the Fields: Terrana Biosciences, Genetic Innovation, and Unanswered Questions
If you were to ask someone about RNA, particularly a scientist or biotech expert, they would likely tell you it’s safe—and for good reason. RNA is a naturally occurring molecule found in all living organisms, including every fruit, vegetable, and animal we consume. It is not infectious, cannot replicate on its own without a host system, and is rapidly broken down by enzymes in the human digestive tract. Unlike DNA-altering technologies, RNA used in agricultural applications does not integrate into the genome and is considered non-heritable—meaning it doesn't pass changes to future generations. For decades, RNA has been studied and deployed in everything from vaccines to cancer therapies with no evidence of harm when ingested. Its specificity—targeting only matching gene sequences—makes it especially appealing for pest control and crop enhancement. This foundational understanding is what gives RNA its reputation as a safe, natural, and precision-based tool in both medicine and agriculture.
But is it really? Has the technology evolved to more?
A Familiar Force Behind a New Frontier
Terrana Biosciences, a newly unveiled ag-biotech startup, has emerged from the same parent company that brought the world Moderna: Flagship Pioneering. Known globally for its pivotal role in the development of mRNA vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, Moderna became a household name almost overnight. Now, Flagship is turning its RNA expertise toward agriculture through Terrana, promising to revolutionize how we protect and enhance our crops.
Terrana has publicly disclosed that it is developing a pipeline of more than 15 RNA-based product candidates aimed at transforming plant health and crop resilience. While a full product list has not been released, the company has confirmed proof-of-concept applications in staple crops such as tomatoes, corn, and soybeans. These form the foundation of its early focus and likely represent the first wave of commercially targeted applications. Terrana’s pipeline is categorized into three primary product classes: Prevent, Protect, and Improve. The “Prevent” class functions like a plant vaccine, using RNA to prime crops’ immune systems against viral threats. The “Protect” category delivers peptides or therapeutic molecules designed to combat ongoing infections, including viral, fungal, and bacterial agents. Finally, the “Improve” class enhances plant traits such as drought or heat tolerance, and in some cases, programs the plant to produce insecticidal proteins like Cry—similar to those used in Bt crops. These tools are developed with a platform that emphasizes RNA amplification, mobility within the plant, environmental stability, and, notably, heritability across generations. While Terrana has not detailed every candidate in its portfolio, the breadth and ambition of the pipeline indicate a wide-scale deployment strategy aimed at both specialty and row crop markets, potentially transforming crop management across diverse agricultural regions.
With a $50 million investment and support from the same biotech incubator that built Moderna, Terrana is not just another crop sciences company. It leverages viral RNA platforms and bioengineering tools to deliver replicating RNA into plants—claiming to boost plant immunity, fight pests and disease, and even influence plant traits in a way that could persist across generations.
What Is RNA? And Why Use It in Plants?
Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a natural molecule found in all living cells. It carries genetic instructions from DNA to produce proteins and regulate cellular function. Terrana uses a type of RNA similar to that used in mRNA vaccines—molecular code designed to trigger specific biological responses, only in this case, in plants instead of humans.
Terrana's technology uses benign plant viruses as a kind of biological vehicle or "chassis" to deliver cargo RNA into crops. These RNA constructs can instruct the plant to mount an immune response, synthesize protective proteins like Cry (used in Bt crops to kill insects), or adapt to environmental stressors. Once sprayed on leaves, the RNA enters through microscopic tears, penetrates the cells, and begins to replicate.
Unlike traditional chemical pesticides or genetically modified seeds, this RNA is applied externally but has internal, systemic effects on the plant. According to the company, the RNA is capable of movement, amplification, and in some cases, influencing traits that could be inherited by future plant generations.
What Do We Really Know About RNA in Agriculture?
The scientific consensus holds that RNA—especially double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) used in RNA interference (RNAi) sprays—poses minimal risk to humans. It degrades quickly in the environment, does not alter human DNA, and breaks down in the digestive system. But Terrana's platform differs significantly from conventional RNA sprays.
Their own PR materials say it plainly: “Terrana’s solutions are fine-tuned for amplification, mobility in plants, stability in different environments, and heritability across plant generations.” If accurate, this means that:
The RNA may persist in plant tissues far longer than conventional RNA treatments.
It may move systemically within the plant, affecting all tissues—not just the area sprayed.
It may alter gene expression in a way that is passed on to future generations.
These are not minor claims. Heritability implies that we are moving beyond non-GMO territory into something that behaves very much like genetic modification, even if no foreign DNA is inserted into the plant genome. The question then becomes: Should this be regulated as a GMO?
Regulatory Blind Spots and the Pace of Deployment
Because RNA does not alter the DNA code itself, products like Terrana’s often fall outside GMO regulations in the United States. In the U.S., RNA-based sprays are typically regulated by the EPA as biopesticides—not the USDA or FDA. This regulatory pathway is faster and less burdensome, allowing companies to bring products to market more rapidly.
But with claims of self-replication and heritability, Terrana’s system occupies a grey area that may be inadequately addressed by current rules. There is no long-term ecological data available. There are no transparent public trials examining intergenerational effects. And there is little evidence that the regulatory framework has caught up with the pace of innovation.
Gene Silencing, Immune Impacts, and Dietary Consequences
RNA is also being developed as a targeted pesticide. By designing RNA sequences that match vital genes in pests—such as those involved in digestion or reproduction—scientists can effectively silence those genes when the insect ingests the RNA-treated plant. The pest dies or fails to reproduce.
But this raises new questions:
What happens when humans ingest RNA-treated plants with embedded pest-targeting RNA?
Could fragments of RNA that silence genes in insects also have off-target effects in human gut cells, immune cells, or our own gene expression mechanisms?
Could this influence our own responses to insects or pathogens, similar to how immune programming occurs?
Although current understanding suggests the digestive tract degrades RNA before it can cause harm, the Terrana model—which involves replicating and potentially heritable RNA constructs—demands a higher level of scrutiny. Particularly concerning is the lack of independent, peer-reviewed research on long-term dietary exposure, immune modulation, or ecological consequences of persistent RNA in the food supply.
Heritability, Patents, and the Future of Food Sovereignty
One of the most consequential and under-discussed aspects of heritable RNA technology is its potential to reshape the economics of farming itself. Terrana’s RNA constructs are proprietary, patented products—meaning any use or spread of this technology is tied to intellectual property law. If sprayed from the air or applied across vast acreages, there is a very real risk that the RNA could spread unintentionally to neighboring fields. Because the RNA is self-replicating and systemically mobile, there’s a possibility that untreated crops could begin to express traits introduced by Terrana’s RNA, even without direct application. This raises profound questions about liability, crop contamination, and farmer autonomy. Could farmers be held responsible—or required to license RNA use—if their crops unintentionally express traits linked to a patented RNA spray used by their neighbors?
Much like the GMO seed model pioneered by companies like Monsanto, the economic structure of self-replicating RNA could foster a new cycle of dependency. If RNA traits persist across generations and are required to combat new climate or pest pressures, farmers may become locked into seasonal applications and licensing agreements they cannot escape. Smaller farms could be disproportionately affected, while large agribusinesses consolidate control over crop inputs and distribution. What emerges is not just a new biotechnology, but a new system of agricultural economics—one that risks deepening industry consolidation and reducing local food sovereignty.
A Global Technology With Local Consequences
“With Terrana, we are bringing an entirely new dimension of innovation to agriculture through similar RNA technology that we pioneered in human health,” said Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Co-Founder of Terrana and CEO of Flagship Pioneering.
This is not a localized experiment. Terrana’s technology is built for global scalability—with its sights on the food systems that feed billions. Precision gene regulation at the plant level could very well transform agriculture. But it also opens the door to a transformation of unknown magnitude, in which genetic responses in plants and pests are manipulated on a mass scale without long-term testing or public consent.
Terrana’s work may indeed offer solutions for crop disease, resilience, and climate adaptation. But with the potential for self-replicating, systemically mobile, and heritable RNA molecules to become widespread in the food supply, we are right to ask serious questions:
Is this still “non-GMO”?
Who is testing the effects five, ten, or twenty years from now?
And what happens if we get it wrong?
The answers don’t yet exist. But the implications are too significant to ignore.
Asking the Questions That Haven’t Been Asked
Biotechnology has given us powerful tools to protect our food, improve yields, and adapt to a changing climate. But when tools are rolled out at scale without transparency, rigorous testing, or public consent, the burden of inquiry shifts to the public.
If Terrana's RNA platform behaves as its developers claim—replicating, persisting, and transmitting through generations—then it may well reshape the biological foundation of agriculture. This isn’t theoretical. This is happening now.
So before we spray self-replicating RNA across millions of acres of cropland, before we modify life with tools that we ourselves don't fully understand, we must ask:
Why haven’t independent safety studies been made public?
Where is the regulatory oversight?
What mechanisms are in place to stop unintended consequences?
Who is liable if this backfires?
The future of agriculture should not be dictated by PR releases and private capital. It should be guided by science, ethics, and informed public dialogue.
And the time for that dialogue is now.
We are the people, the people of the world, our ecology belongs to us, not them.