Croplife America Conference: Feeding A Hungry And Growing
07/18/2010
Matt Kaye
Agriculture and food safety experts agreed at a Washington, DC policy conference that technology is key to feeding a hungry and growing world, but there are other issues that may keep that from happening. Julie Borlaug, whose Nobel laureate grandfather Norman is credited with saving a billion people from starvation through plant genetics, defended GMO technology against those who argue food distribution and equity is the problem, “It is a production problem…if they cannot produce the food, if we cannot get the food to where it needs to be…it’s not just global justice, it’s global production. If they don’t have the inputs, if there’s no infrastructure, they don’t have any technology, you can’t say it’s an equity problem-it’s a production problem for the people, where they are.”
Experts at the Croplife American National Policy Conference pointed to estimates that world population will soar to 9-billion by 2050 and will require a doubling of food production on the same acreage.
Former Purdue University Ag Dean Bob Thompson says activists continue to stand in the way of GMO technology in developing nations and that regional ecosystem differences hinder transfer of the technology, “The tools of modern science are freely mobile…but then, you’ve got to make the local adaptation investments, in order to optimize those varieties for the local agro-ecological environment.” Thompson says it takes adaptation investments to get those varieties to thrive in areas and also to adapt to changing climates…all of which will take money in budget-starved countries and help from the US. Link
The only people that I see complaining about new technological advancements in the world of agriculture are the ones with full stomachs. When you are hungry your priorities change quite a bit and they have nothing to do with protesting about how food is grown.
2 comments:
Good post. Pl go through the article "Remarkable initiative in ICT4Agriculture", by e-agriculture.org, an FAO of UN based Organization. Here is the URL"
http://www.e-agriculture.org/19.html?&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=2128&tx_ttnews[backPid]=51&cHash=a
I sure hope that one day you'll be part of the world hungry fed with GMO corn that causes sterility. Thanks to generous biotech companies! (Shame on you that you call yourself an agricultural advocate!)
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