Moderna’s parent company is now spraying RNA into food
Flagship Pioneering, the company that founded Moderna, is now bringing genetically modified RNA sprays into agriculture that are designed to remain in plant tissue and spread there.
Flagship Pioneering – the biotech company behind Moderna – has founded a new company called Terrana Biosciences. The goal is to spray plants with synthetic RNA designed to actually penetrate the plant, spread internally, withstand extreme environmental conditions, and even be passed down through generations. The technology is based on synthetic RNA constructs from a vast RNA library, designed using advanced AI and computer models.
Flagship Pioneering was founded in 1999 by Noubar Afeyan and Ed Kania under the name NewcoGen.
As founder and CEO of Flagship – and co-founder of Moderna – Afeyan built close collaborations with U.S. government agencies such as NIAID, HHS, BARDA, FDA, and Operation Warp Speed and played a pivotal role in the development of Moderna’s covid-19 vaccine.
The launch of the new RNA spraying technology comes as EcoHealth Alliance’s DEFUSE application to DARPA is being re-examined – a proposal that included plans to spray chimeric coronavirus spike proteins, immunomodulators, and self-dispersing vaccines via drones.
These technologies were developed before the covid pandemic, raising the question of whether the pandemic may have been the covert launch of a deliberate biological aerosol operation testing drone-based delivery of covid-related substances to the world’s population under the guise of a global health emergency.
Whistleblower statements and FOIA documents show that large-scale platforms for the “mass inoculation of animals and humans” were described.
In addition, the PREP Act authorizes the U.S. government, in the event of a declared emergency, to secretly administer drugs, biological products, and medical devices to the population – without consent, without geographic limitation, without legal accountability, and without obligation to disclose if the measures are classified.
In a press release issued in July 2025, Flagship stated:
“Flagship Pioneering, the bioplatform-based innovation company, announced Terrana Biosciences™, a company developing RNA-based solutions for agriculture to enable protective and enhanced plant traits without altering the plant genome. With its proprietary RNA technology platform, Terrana develops targeted products that can be deployed at any point in a plant’s life cycle, enabling a continuous pipeline of adaptive products that flexibly adapt to climate change – at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional approaches. Flagship provided Terrana with an initial $50 million to ramp up operations and develop initial products for crop protection and yield enhancement.”
Building on the Moderna model
Flagship explicitly uses the RNA platform that was also used for the Moderna vaccine.
“With Terrana, we’re bringing a whole new dimension of innovation to agriculture – using RNA technology like the one we developed in human medicine,” said CEO Afeyan. “This approach will provide farmers with precise, adaptable solutions to threats in fields and orchards – thus increasing the resilience, sustainability, and productivity of the global food system.”
RNA that enters and moves within the plant
In a July 2 interview with AgFunderNews, Terrana CEO Ryan Rapp explained how Terrana RNA differs from previous applications:
“Previous RNA applications mostly consisted of mRNA, double-stranded RNA, or hairpins that remained on the plant surface and were rapidly degraded. Our RNA actually penetrates and moves within the plant, opening up a completely new approach to agricultural challenges.”
Designed to persist, spread, and be inheritable
According to Flagship’s press release, Terrana’s RNA solutions are designed to replicate within the plant body, be mobile, remain stable in diverse environments – and be inherited across generations.
Designed by AI – inspired by plant-derived RNA communication
“Trees and crop plants naturally use a complex system of self-replicating RNAs to control traits such as growth, stress response, and development – like their own biological language.”
Terrana has already developed dozens of synthetic RNAs:
“Terrana has a comprehensive RNA library and a design system that generates new functional plant traits with unprecedented precision, versatility, and speed. Initial applications have been successfully demonstrated in tomatoes, corn, and soybeans. The pipeline includes more than 15 potential products for specialty and row crops.”
The aim is to extend this RNA technology, originally developed for human medicine, to a wide range of agricultural applications, including annual and perennial plant species.
“RNA-based technology has enabled lifesaving advances in medicine. Now we’re applying this approach to agriculture,” said Ignacio Martinez, co-founder and executive chairman of Terrana and general partner at Flagship. “Using nature’s language, we can give plants new instructions that directly intervene in their natural physiology – enabling solutions that benefit farmers, consumers, and the planet.”
But if synthetic RNA can now be sprayed onto crops – to reprogram biology from within, persist, spread, and even be inherited – what’s to stop those same biotech and government actors from also quietly deploying such programmable agents in ecosystems, food, or human beings?
And if these synthetic RNAs persist in plant tissue and circulate through global food systems, what are the long-term health consequences of chronic exposure to AI-generated, genetically active substances created not for nutrition but for manipulation?
To date, the company only operates in the USA.
yogaesoteric
September 28, 2025
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