According to “Bio: Biotechnology Industry Organization,” only 10% of the world’s land is arable.  They also state that by 2050, 50% of that land will be used for other purposes and the global population will have increased by 50%.  We are looking at the possibility of a severe food crisis if we are not careful. 

To add to decreasing land availability, increasing population and shifts in weather patterns; we are also seeing the growth of crops for fuel.  Re-purposing land for bio-fuel growth is causing food prices to soar while food availability drops.  Last year, there were riots in Mexico due to a 400% increase in the cost of corn over a three month time period.   Many of Mexico’s poor depend upon cheap corn prices to survive.  The price of wheat also rose due to extended droughts in Australia and US land being used to raise bio-fuel crops instead of wheat.   In fact, in “The Independent World,” Paul Vallely notes that the global cost of wheat went up by 130% from 2007 to 2008.  Where will the squeeze for food and fuel growth lead us?

In times of climate fluctuation and decreasing global land availability for crop growth, we will have to maximize the potential of each growing season.  Many believe that GM (Genetically Modified) agriculture is the answer.  The argument is that GM plants are stronger, require fewer applications of pesticides and herbicides, and will preserve soil through non-till agriculture.  Also, GM plants can be created to incorporate vitamins and immunizations that are desperately needed in third world countries.  The World Health Organization states that approximately 500,000 children go blind every year due to vitamin A deficiency.  Golden rice is a GM plant which can deliver the vitamin A that local rice lacks in many third world countries.  The bio-tech industry is also researching ways to incorporate vaccines into GM plants which would allow countries to immunize their populations through food instead of refrigerated shots.  Furthermore, GM plants can be engineered to tolerate drought and cold better than their non-GM counterparts.

GM agriculture could be considered the wonder drug of the food world, couldn’t it?  Well, don’t jump to conclusions too soon.  Even though people have been breeding and modifying species for thousands of years (just look at how far dogs have come from their wolf ancestors), we are now at a point in human evolution where we can create new plants in laboratories.  It could be argued that there is a huge difference in the breeding process because in the past we could only arrive at new strains of plants or animals through old-fashioned, time-consuming methods which were not as isolated as the lab environment.  Before GM technology, we used nature to arrive at a new natural state.  Governments, communities and farmers are concerned that cross-pollination will cause problems with their non-GM crops.  To make matters worse, GM seeds are patentable and farmers that have had cross-pollination from GM crops could face legal consequences.  Because GM crops can handle powerful applications of herbicides, there is concern that weeds growing near GM crops will also become herbicide resistant. 

Despite the fact that many scientists insist that GM agriculture is safe, we do not know how it will react with nature over time (they did say the Titanic was unsinkable before it sank).  We must guard against hubris.  However, with the rate in climate and population change, we may have to turn to GM agriculture to save us.  If this occurs, we can only hope that in an ironic twist of fate, the proliferation of GM crops does not save us today and destroy us tomorrow with unforeseen environmental problems.  Once they are unleashed into nature on a large scale, there is no going back.  The scientific experiment about the long term effects of GM agriculture will have to happen live because nature cannot be replicated in the controlled environment of a lab.