A LOOMING world food shortage is about to present agriculture with its next great challenge.
Low grain stockpiles, high food prices and a burgeoning world population will force countries to find new ways to feed the world’s people.
Agriculture must respond, but if it is to be successful, many nations must consider a solution they have thus far been reluctant to embrace: genetically modified crops.
GM crops have potential to boost yields and create more healthful products and can be more environmentally friendly than crops now available.
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Yet this vital cog in the machinery working toward a food security solution is being shunned because of unsubstantiated fears.
The North American public has largely accepted GM crops but consumers in many countries, particularly in Europe, have staged massive opposition, fearing loss of plant diversity, possible long-term but as yet unknown health effects and environmental contamination should the GM plants spread out of control. These concerns have not been borne out by scientific research.
Consumer opposition has proven potent and has forced biotech companies to delay commercial release of some products.
This even though GM gives the world the most bang for its buck – it can feed more people on less land.
The ability of GM crops to increase yields is an asset that will prove essential over the next few decades with the world population expected to increase by more than two billion by 2050 and millions enter the middle class..
As well, higher yielding GM crops have potential to preserve natural habitat by producing more on existing farmland. Natural land preservation improves carbon sequestration, which helps alleviate the greenhouse effect.
There is added urgency to push the GM agenda forward once we consider what many scientists today view as an imminent water shortage. Major biotech companies are already preparing for the day, pouring millions into research to speed the release of drought tolerant crops.
Added to this is GM crops’ tendency to use fewer pesticides and the potential to develop non-food sources of biofuel, thus dampening a major criticism that biofuel diverts food away from the hungry.
Selling detractors on the benefits of GM won’t be easy but lacking substantial evidence to justify their fears, they might be swayed by more altruistic causes.
It would be difficult to argue against a wheat, for example, that uses water more efficiently, is more environmentally friendly and can feed more of the world’s hungry on fewer acres, without stronger evidence of its downside.
In Canada, the main resistance to GM wheat was based on market acceptance. However, by developing products designed to enhance human health or to improve worldwide quality of life, biotech companies might turn the tide of public opinion and open up those markets.
It is time for leaders in countries that have not approved GM crops to show leadership and to behave in the interests of the long-term good, rather than the short-term goal of winning votes.
With world hunger, climate change and food shortages threatening, the world cannot afford to turn its back on science.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
