How can gm crops solve world hunger

While it may sound like science fiction, large chemical companies like DuPont and Monsanto have been using this technology for over two decades on a wide variety of plants, many of which may alleviate world hunger. In , Calgene introduced the first GM crop to be sold in the United States, the Flavr Savr tomato, which ripened slowly and had an extended shelf-life [5]. Flavr Savr tomatoes eventually disappeared from grocery stores because high production costs prevented them from becoming profitable, but lengthening the amount of time that produce stays fresh may be used to increase the food supply in underdeveloped areas.

In reality, genetic engineering is a much less dramatic process that often involves pipetting clear, colorless liquids into other clear, colorless liquids. A more direct solution to chronic hunger involves GM crops that have been engineered to increase yield, which is a measure of the amount of food that may be harvested from a given area of land. A popular strategy that scientists use to increase this metric is to insert a gene that confers resistance to commonly used weedkillers.

Farmers that adopt these herbicide-resistant crops are able to clear their fields of unwanted plants without tilling the soil, which allows them to plant higher densities of crops. Lastly, genetic engineering can generate crops that are resistant to microbial infections, such as the potato blight that triggered the Irish Potato Famine in the mid th century [6].

How these scientific ideas actually translate to the fields is often the subject of intense debate, but a recent review of almost studies has concluded that GM technology has significantly increased crop yields and farmer profits over the past 20 years.

This is particularly encouraging because food shortages often take their most severe toll in underdeveloped regions. Even with these new crops, however, some areas of the world have seen their agricultural output begin to plateau [8]. Therefore, increases in yield alone will likely not be able to sustain our ever-growing populace. Figure 3: Overall Effects of Farming with GM Crops The graph above shows the average percentage differences in several important metrics that result from farmers adopting GM crops.

Overall, GM crops were associated with substantially higher yields and lower pesticide use. The slight increase in total production costs is likely attributable to the increased price of GM seeds, but it is dwarfed by the dramatic increase in farmer profits. Data obtained from Klumper and Qaim [8]. Another strategy that genetic engineers are currently pursuing is the development of drought-resistant crops.

As the climate steadily warms, droughts are projected to occur more frequently and to last longer, threatening harvests worldwide. Farmers could hedge against these potential losses by planting GM crops that can flourish in both wet and arid conditions. African farmers, in particular, may be able to use these crops to exploit previously untapped agricultural opportunities. Just as human height and intelligence are influenced by a poorly understood interplay of many different genes and environmental factors, complex traits like drought resistance are typically determined by more than one or two pieces of genetic code.

Present-day research has not precisely identified the intricate combination of genes that allows crops to thrive in arid conditions, so these crops have likely not yet reached their full potential. Plummeting research costs, however, will likely allow genetic engineers to modify more complex traits in the years to come. The current cost of determining the sequence of your genetic code is roughly five thousand dollars, which is only 0. Lower research costs likely will lead to an expansion of our molecular toolkit for combating hunger as we draw connections between traits and specific genes, such as those that successfully confer drought resistance to selectively bred crops.

One such innovation that has already come to fruition is a new rice plant that was described just last month in the journal Nature. This new strain contains an additional gene that transfers growth away from the roots and towards the parts of the plant that humans can actually eat.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas roughly 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide , so this rice should not aggravate the environmental problems that other GM crops are trying to solve. Other promising GM crops of the not-so-distant future include flood-resistant rice, maize that can grow in nitrogen-poor soil, and potatoes that can immunize consumers against hepatitis B infection [12]. Carrington D. The Guardian. Falk T. Biello D. Scientific American.

Hunger Statistics. World Food Programme. For now, there remain many uncertainties about the impact of gene-edited organisms on the environment and health. While gene editing may not introduce foreign genetic material, the technology definitely changes the composition of the product at a very fundamental level. Research is currently under way to improve these techniques, reduce the frequency of unwanted mutations and improve the safety of genome editing. Golden rice , for example, promises to save one million children a year from vitamin A-related mortality.

Despite biotech company Sygenta offering the license to grow golden rice free of charge for humanitarian use, its approval has been stalled in most settings.

The country poorly regulated adoption of genetic engineering. While still a multifarious issue, activists contend that indedtedness and crop failure — both, they say, inevitable outcomes of the corporate model of industrial agriculture introduced in India — have further stressed some Indian farmers.

Interestingly, the move toward genome editing as the favored approach to genetic engineering may, at least in part, provide some leeway for biotech companies to avoid regulation. Genome editing using TALENs and similar techniques are either outside the jurisdiction of the US Department of Agriculture or were not envisioned when existing regulations were created.

The USDA currently relies on a product-based regulatory framework that focuses less on the technology used to develop the crop and more on the inherent risk of the final product.

The emphasis is on any potential risk the new traits or attributes introduced into the plant pose to the public or the environment. But considering the reality of unanticipated, and often controversial, novel techniques of food production, it might be a better idea for the USDA to utilize process-based regulations as done by the EU, Argentina, Brazil, and several other countries. In those countries, the regulators focus on how food crops are developed, not just on the final outcome.

The world needs more nutrient-rich, environmentally friendly food production. More gene editing in food crops makes sense, but only with prudent regulatory mechanisms in place to ensure the safety of these new approaches to food availability.

It also expands the range of possible alterations, since genes from one species can be inserted into another. GMOs have been widely touted as a solution to hunger and malnutrition: engineering for specific traits , like the wilt-resistant banana in Uganda, they could make farmers less vulnerable to crop loss.

The Gates Foundation Asset Trust, which manages the foundation's assets , has previously held shares of Monsanto. The trust hasn't held shares of Monsanto "for a few years" says Alex Reid, a foundation spokesperson, who adds that the trust is managed separately and doesn't get input into what the foundation funds. The trust's tax form lists all holdings at the end of the fiscal year — you can see the most recent one here.

The Gates Foundation suggests that by using better fertilizer and more productive crops such as GMOs, African farmers could "theoretically double their yields. But even if GMO crops yield more produce, will that translate to less hunger? Lowered production is an issue, certainly.

Once, Africa was a major food exporter, sending out coffee, cocoa, and spices — but the price of commodities dropped in the s, and imports have outpaced exports. Relying heavily on imports raises the price of regionally produced food, contributing to a cycle of poverty. Increasing production, however, may be a red herring: according to the World Food Programme, the planet actually produces enough food to feed everyone alive more than 2, calories a day. But global funding priorities remain "heavily focused on increasing agricultural production," according to a report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Meeting the food security challenges is primarily about the empowerment of the poor and their food sovereignty. Oxfam America has previously received funding from the Gates Foundation. Farmers in Africa are also politically weak, says Kripke. Of the 54 states within the African Union, only 10 have allocated at least a tenth of their public investments to agriculture — that is, to infrastructure, irrigation, research, and development.

About 30 percent of crops produced in Africa are lost after harvest, says Agnes Kalibata, the president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, an agricultural organization founded with funds from the Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation in Her group hopes to change that.

Between and , Rwanda more than doubled its crop production by increasing agriculture investment from 3. Using the lessons Kalibata learned in Rwanda, AGRA is trying to promote policy changes, including increased government investment, across the continent. AGRA advocates for basic, but wide-reaching structural changes: for instance, Africa has no continent-wide regulations on grades, standards, weights, or measures — all of which complicate trade.

Customs procedures are often cumbersome, and vary widely — which drive up the cost of transactions.