General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGMO Scientists Could Save the World From Hunger, If We Let Them
Such disasters are increasingly common on a planet buffeted by climate change and worldwide commerce, where heat burns crops, soil has been ruined by over-farming and drought, and bugs ride across oceans to feast on defenseless plants. Agronomists have been working on these problems for years, but the rapid population growth of humans makes overcoming these challenges increasingly urgent. If we cant feed the world, it will eventually feed on us.
The United Nations and experts say global food production will have to double by 2050, at which point the world population is expected to have grown from 7 billion today to well beyond 9 billion. Thats just 35 years away, and there will be no new arable land then. In fact, there probably will be less. For example, 73 million acres of arable land in the U.S. were lost between 2002 and 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA); more was certainly made fallow during the last several years of severe drought. Looking ahead, growing conditions will only get harsher.
The solution, though, appears to be on the way: In 2012, a new tool was invented that revolutionizes how scientists can examineand manipulateplant genetic processes. Its called CRISPR-Cas9, and unlike its predecessors in the world of genetic modification, it is highly specific, allowing scientists to zero in on a single gene and turn it on or off, remove it or exchange it for a different gene. Early signs suggest this tool will be an F-16 jet fighter compared with the Stone Age spear of grafting, the traditional, painstaking means of breeding a new plant hybrid. Biologists and geneticists are confident it can help them build a second Green Revolutionif well let them.
...
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/05/29/gmo-scientists-could-save-world-hunger-if-we-let-them-334119.html
Future numbers, whether the lack of arable land or number of people or...don't seem to support a bunch of people living without GMO foods grown without petroleum products. Mostly more of the same.
Or perhaps we have a nuclear war with Russia or China, don't need so much food.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Food is just one resource among many that we're going to run into too much demand, too little supply. The real solution is fewer people on the planet. Anything less is a bandaid.
immoderate
(20,885 posts)It's not a sustainable technology.
--imm
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)As you suggest, it might provide it's own, uh, solution.
immoderate
(20,885 posts)--imm
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)the same choices, or lack of, as everyone else.
We are experimenting to see what is going to happen to our entire population. Wheeee!!!
Didn't really intend to, I think. But we are. Because no one knows what the outcome of the GMOs will be.
It would be decades, if not hundreds of years, to reverse all that has been done. And the economics of it, barring a die off or something else that interrupts it, says we will have more and more going forward.
Didn't say I like it, just not the type to stick my head in the sand and pretend it doesn't affect me.
immoderate
(20,885 posts)And I hope you will consider that I said I didn't want to be included in an experiment.
You might have missed the posts where I talked about biodiversity, and the dangers of monocultures, superweeds and superpests, proliferation and contamination of pesticides, genetic pleiotropy, market domination of the GM manufacturers, and the GM forests which exterminate all other living things. There's more. I guess you missed those too.
Anyway, without the food being labeled, it's hard to call it an experiment, right?
--imm
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Didn't miss them either. I think from your tone it would be a waste of time.
And, frankly, I am damn sure _they_ don't care what you or anyone else thinks, or whether you want to be included or not.
I got dishes to do. Bye.
immoderate
(20,885 posts)--imm
JHB
(37,161 posts)It's not a matter of science, it's a matter of distribution, which makes it far more a political and economic matter. And without the political back-up for accomplishing distribution by various means, GMOs won't do it either.
That's part of the future numbers too.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)is gone, there is no current answer.
And I am not sure this isn't just a paid for article, courtesy Bill Gates. That kind of money he can just count on lapdogs, unhealthy bias. That is, I am not sure there is an answer.
The economics of GMO's is making it difficult to keep the knowledge alive of the traditional ways of raising food. I grow, partly for market, and it's a learning curve that we are gonna wish we had stayed on top of, I think. I hate to think that we are letting Gates dictate our choices.
But to your point, we have screwed around with distribution, and especially with subsidies to unhealthy things such as beef nnd sugar, with virtually nothing to those foods that are better and can be grown with less artificial input, but more labor.
More than one area to address, obviously. I'm glad I have a garden.
Chathamization
(1,638 posts)and a host of other problems. The problem with many GMO advocates, I've found, is that they've decided that GMOs are the solution before they even begin to approach the problem (golden rice is another example of this). "We've decided that you need an operation to remove your gall bladder; now, please tell us your symptoms so that we can come up with the reasons why you need the operation."
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)and GMO food will not help. In fact, it is likely to make things worse. Monsanto is the leader in this, and they have developed crop strains that are RoundUp-resistant. The plan of course is that they can spray the entire field with RoundUp and kill everything except the crop. They have added the BT gene to crops to make them toxic to insects. One little problem? Already they are seeing Super Weeds, and Super Bugs...surprise! Ma Nature found a way to adapt. And she will again.
It is nothing short of criminal stupidity to plant vast amounts--all over the world!--of the same strain of crops: one viral mutation, one fungus, one disease and all of it could be wiped out. That is what these idiots are playing with. The Irish Potato famine was a very small example of what could happen: one fungus wiped out the principle food crop for the Catholic farmers and did it almost overnight. From Wiki. "Implicated in Ireland's fate was the island's disproportionate dependency on a single variety of potato, the Irish Lumper. The lack of genetic variability created a susceptible host population for the organism.
(my bold)
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)than we know, I think.
JI7
(89,264 posts)than actually lack of food ?
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)certainly important, but if the people don't ask for, or know what to do with what is better for them it might just lay there and rot. Parents actually go to schools and complain when they try to feed the kids better, get rid of the pop machines (sugar addiction delivered right outside the classroom - there's some training for you). Part of the reason the distribution is so screwed up is because screwed up adults can't breed their way out of solving their own problems. If they don't, they just pass the same broken ideas along.
Plus, I think there is a little bit of living in the past, thinking we still live in this resource-rich place and just need to do a better job of passing the largess around. Heck, it worked for the past few hundred years, after we murdered the people who used to live here, so it must be workable in the future. But I think people don't realize how much has fundamentally changed. Environment, climate, even the foods themselves.
I think we need to figure out how to get the people trained first, people who, frankly, may not want to be trained, and may well rather die. Then they will fix those issues. Or not. People are funny that way.
Rex
(65,616 posts)China gonna need land eventually. A lot of ways to 'fix' world hunger. Not many are tried by those that never want.
pnwmom
(108,994 posts)from most jobs requiring labor, and allow everyone a comfortable standard of living and plenty of free time.
The people who think GMOs and Roundup pesticides are going to save the world are deluding themselves, and the public.