“We will have to feed 9.5 billion hopefully less poor people by 2050 on about the same land area as we use today, using limited fertiliser, water and pesticides and in the context of a rapidly changing climate.” It will be impossible to feed those extra mouths by digging up more land, because there isn’t much going and because land conversion is a large source of greenhouse gases. Taking more water from rivers will accelerate biodiversity loss. And we need to improve – probably reduce – nitrogen use (ie in chemical fertilisers) which is creating a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico and eutrophication in fresh water. The only way of squaring this circle will be through the technology-driven intensification of farming – ie, GM.
That is JP in The Economist quoting former genetically modified foods opponent Mark Lynas who spoke recently at the Oxford conference. It seems safe to say that Lynas will not win many converts to support GM crops, but that is less important than if he is right.
Charles Kenny argued in Foreign Policy that GM opposition is due in some part to poor information and some failures.
Worries remain, though, in no small part due to the lack of major, rigorous analyses and the unwillingness of seed producers to share data. Of course, many GM crops have failed to deliver as advertised, and even in the best of cases they are certainly no panacea.
But there have also been successes -- involving significant, positive impacts on environmental and financial outcomes. For example, economists Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot of Britain's PG Economics estimated that countries that adopted GM insect-resistant cotton saw a 13.3 percent increase in the value of their 2005 cotton crop, as well as a 95 percent reduction in the use of insecticides. There is every reason to do more research and testing on both the threats and potential benefits of GM, but there's no reason to demonize it.
If the world, with the current technologies, is unable to provide adequate food for a growing population, what is the answer?
The 'if' is important as some will probably argue that it is possible. So maybe that is the starting point. Can the planet earth provide enough food for over 9 billion people by 2050 if we assume that all land is being used as efficiently and environmentally sustainable as possible?
16 comments:
You suggest that "If the world, with the current technologies, is unable to provide adequate food for a growing population, what is the answer?". I would suggest that there are many current technologies that are NOT being effectively or widely employed that would, if adopted, bring about the sort of agricultural transformation people are hoping for. In particular, I speak of contextually appropriate soil and water conservation practices, the adoption of which can not only stop but reverse the soil degradation that is at the heart of vulnerability so prevalent in, for example, Sub-Saharan Africa as well as a number of agroforestry practices. These would include Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) and Conservation Agriculture (CA). What we need is widespread adoption of currently proven productive, sustainable and resilient agricultural practices by both large and small scale farmers rather than a fixation on some new, future technological "fix".
Technology here is not the issue, the world today produces enough to feed almost 12 billion people, enough for our actual 7+ billion people and also for the 9,5 projected in 2050. Two studies performed in UK and Japan came to the conclusion that between the field and the end consumers, between 30 to 40 % of all the production is lost during the different stage of the producing, packeting, transport, wholesale, retail and consumption. It sounds to me that it would make a lot more sense to address the spilling, rather than to try to exhaust the earth even quicker than we do now. Also, having those ultra-high yields always comes at the cost of a reduced capacity of the land to regenerates itself, thus impeding the long term food production capacity.
Another important point here is that the global hunger problem is not a matter of production capacity, but mainly an issue of access to food, a matter of purchasing power of the most needing, thus a matter of a certain redistribution of wealth, thus a denial of democracy.
On a more global note, I'm absolutely not against development of GM crops, but as with every technology, I'm very wary of the long term consequences since they are absolutely not know, mainly because, as the articles states, the lack of major, rigorous analyses and the unwillingness of seed producers to share data. Concerning this particular tech, I'm wary of the health-issues for human ingestion and of their impact on biodiversity. The impact of the introduction of GM-maize on local varieties in Mexico is a very good example.
Finally, let's not be hypocrite on this, GM crops are mainly designed to insure a recurrent income for the designers/producers, for most of them the 'feeding the world' argument is nothing more than a sales argument.
My (maybe a bit to naive) two cents
Thanks. Glad you brought up the problem of access.
What are your thoughts on acces issue
Mainly I am in agreement. A lot of evidence points towards food access as being the largest challenge. Food is not getting to where it needs to be and people are unable to afford it (in a nutshell).
What interests me about GM crops are the ones that are drought resistant for example. They seem unlikely to be a solution alone, but farmers having the ability to plant crops with little or no rainfall has the potential to provide an important development step. However, the other side of the coin is to say that if the same people have means to access food through markets and can afford them through income earned then the problem is addressed.
My concerns are in regards to sustainability and whether GM crops can in fact support agriculture in a way that is improved. The potential seems to be there, but evidence feels lacking (though I may be wrong on this account).
I agree that evolutions like making drought-resistant plants is probably a good thing. I'm feeling that – like with any technological invention – there's a tipping point where the improvement you get by the technology doesn't add up with the external consequences (in this case impact on biodiversity, possibility of seed-ownership by farmers, independence in the choice of production, consequences of mono-culture on nutrition and economic diversity, etc.), and that for US or Europe for example, this point is far behind us. The promised increase in yields turned out not to be that great, and a lot of our farmers are now trapped in a vicious circle of being indebted to banks for the purchase of their seeds, machinery, fertilizers or insecticide. And rare are those who step back from this industrial-type production and enter the organic-market, because their soil needs three seasons to regenerate, and no one of them can afford to sit three years without income.
We really need to encourage/support in the first place local production types that are fully adapted to local conditions and environment by hundreds of years of experimenting by local farmers, instead of coming out of a lab in US or EU.
A lot of that makes sense. However, do local production types and developed technologies have to be mutually exclusive? Why can't they learn from and support each other?
Theoretically, they could coexist, and it could definitely yield very interesting results in regards to alleviating world hunger. Sadly, facts on the ground prove that gmo-producers (and associated fertilizer and pesticide-producer), when they come in interaction with traditional production models, only tends to extract what they need from their traditional counterpart (learning from ancestral herbs or carefully selected seeds and then patenting them, effectively barring the use of these traditionally developed seeds for those who actually selected them) and always try to replace the traditional model with one that is financially interesting for them, and not for the populations their crops are supposed to feed. The reason for this is, in my opinion, that the two systems have completely opposite goals : one is to feed a population, the other one is to generate a steady income for the designer.
Maybe the emergence a social entrepreneur-style gmo manufacturer could reconcile the two worlds, but I don't see it happening right now.
That is a problem. So it seems that, at the heart, the tension is more of a business one (for a lack of a better term at the tip of my tongue) than a technical one. I hope you are right in that there may be a way to decouple the two so that GMOs, if they work and so on, can benefit the farmers.
I'm taking solace in the example of AIDS drugs manufacturing and distribution. When the first tri-therapy was brought to the commercial market in the early 2000, it cost an average 11.000 dollars a year. Clearly the aim here with setting this price was not to help save lives, but rather to cover expenses made to engineer the drug and insure a healthy profit. I'm certainly not against making a healthy profit, all depends on the definition of 'healthy'.
Once the limitation on making generic drugs based on this formula was lifted, not without very strong opposition from pharma-industry, you saw a massive reduction in price (a drop of 90 % in 12 months in brand formula's, where generic alternatives cost even 3 times less) and a quick improvement in access to the medicine.
I think a way GMO's could be used to improve the global food situation is if the same shift in reglementation is applied to this sector. Let industry develop GMO's, let them cover expenses and some level of profit, then make the technology public, create public or socially orientated private GMO-manufacturer in order to distribute the technology at an affordable cost for consumers-farmers. This is a big shift but pharma-industry was forced to do so and I didn't see any of them going bankrupt, so there's no reason to believe that GMO's-manufacturers would as a consequence of this decision.
Even then, as stated before, GMO-seeds should be developed with a much bigger emphase on the long-term consequence such as land-fertility decrease over time, pollution of water-resources or health-hazards. It will certainly remain a topic interesting to follow in the next years, as farmer's movement over the world tend to become much more bold and assertive on this issue.
one recent discovery that tends to support my point : http://permaculturenews.org/2013/01/23/regulators-discover-a-hidden-viral-gene-in-commercial-gmo-crops/
Interesting find. BTW, your medicines point is right on. I think there is the potential to go in that direction, but it will likely be a tenuous relationship, as is the case with ARVs even now.
One of the problems is the public pressures against research with development funding for GMOs for the poor that would be in the public domain. The current system of patents and production of GMOs strengthens the hand of the agribusiness to increase their hold on the agricultural process everywhere. The fight against GMOs is misguided: it should be a fight against the concentration of power in the hands of a few agribusinesses.
In my experience with small farmers, GMOs would be a godsend, they address exactly the problems the poor cannot fight for lack of funds: fungi, insects, lack of nutritional value... Only, will anybody make them accessible for them? Will Oxfam lead the charge?
Increase on GM crops is not the solution for food hunger rather strong support and financing on organic farming.
That's an interesting point you make, and I must agree with you that the discussion now only focuses on the pro/contra GGO-agrument, rather than looking at a way that GGO could be put to use for the benefit of most. But we can say safely that this won't happen by 'self-regulation' and that governments need to step in on that. The fight against concentration of powers is indeed fundamental, but this fight is much broader and concentration of power and means should fought against in all aspects of our society.
As for the Oxfam question, I must admit that I'm not satisfied with the rather timid position on this point. Fact is that a lot of people think like you, but a lot of others don't. Clear positioning on such a controversial topic in such a big organization is not always easy to get.
I am interested to hear you explain your point further.
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