primed = ready?

Context:

“The situation is becoming more serious,”
he says. Meanwhile, drought and develop-
ment are eating away at yields of wheat and
other crops.
GM rice seemed primed to usher in
China’s brave new transgenic world. The
two varieties that passed safety inspection
express a gene for a protein from the bacte-
rium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) that’s toxic
to insects. Iran and the United States have
already approved commercial planting of
GM rice, but Chinese regulators have been
extremely cautious about tinkering with the
country’s most important grain. “China has
been stricter with GM rice than any other

You can prime a pump, too.