Facing the challenges of changing climates, limiting resources, and growing population needs, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) turns to creative biotechnological solutions to attain our goal of global food security through the President’s Feed the Future initiative. Significant advances have been made through our partnerships with universities, nongovernmental organizations, and private companies to develop a new generation of biotechnology crops that are aligned with the Feed the Future research strategy. In the pipeline are many crops developed to be more efficient and effective options for smallholder farmers, some of which are soon primed for commercialization. This session will highlight examples where breakthrough advances in biotechnology have been made to improve banana, cassava, rice, and other tropical crops that are important in USAID focal regions. These include approaches such as new transformation methods and the use of RNA interference (RNAi). Whereas biotechnology has empowered us to identify elegant strategies with a sharp focus to tackle our challenges, the surrounding issues of biosafety should not be neglected and will be discussed. USAID views the establishment of science-based regulatory frameworks to be equally important to our research investments, particularly in maximizing benefits towards our goal to improve livelihoods.