This is an example of techno-optimism gone mad. Genetic engineering is a failure. It has only been able to produce: IR= insect resistance ie the plant becomes a pesticide factory to kill insects that eat it or HT= herbicide tolerance meaning plants can be sprayed with weedkiller and not die.

The problem is that both plants and pests adapt and so stronger weedkillers need to be used. Currently there is an application from Dow AgroSciences Australia Limited for approval of a GM corn DAS-40278-9. It has been genetically modified to be tolerant to the herbicides 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and quizalofop-P-ethyl.

2-4-D was one of the ingredients of Agent Orange. GM is setting us onto a path where soon food will be too toxic to eat.

If you want to feed the world use nature. Planting acacia trees next to corn in Africa tripled yields. The System of Rice Intensification (SRI) can double yields. Via Campesina the world wide small farmers group shows that the world can be fed and the planet cooled by farming within natural limits.

The problem with out current food system is that it is designed to feed agribusiness profits and not people. People are squeezed off land for the benefit of big farmers who export grain for animal feed to wealthy countries. They end up in slums with no land and no money and no food. Half of food grown ends up wasted. There is no need for anyone to go hungry.

Well said lillian! There is sufficient food produced today to feed the world: the reason that so many human beings go to bed hungry every day or die because of malnutrition is the greed and indifference of the shareholders and exective managers of giant, vertically-intergrated, multi-national corporations and well-rewarded executive bureaucrats and "people's representatives" who are complicit in and profit from the pernicious mode of social production, distribution and exchange called Capitalism.

I agree that this is very optimistic, however the posts so far only show a fear of technological advances that they don't understand, as well as the usual bashing of big business and farming practices (herbicide use). These type of arguments are commonly used against things such as GM food, organ transplants and nuclear power, however, these arguments completely miss the point. Basically what the author is suggesting is that food can be produced synthetically from natural products (i.e. culture of plant and animal cells). This is not so unrealistic as researchers are now able to produce functional organs from stem cells in the lab for transplant into humans, so the production of corn, wheat or chicken breast is also possible. However cost is another factor, and I don't see this being viable without anything short of a mass extinction event.

PS. if you argue that we should leave it to nature, fine, go and pick your berries in the wilderness and see if you starve. Farming of any sort manipulates nature in the same way as GM. If you have a problem with GM you should also have a problem with selective breeding.

Heaven help us. Save us from the idiots.

There is probably no alternative to food fermented in a vat sometime in the near future. The idiot greenies & hopeless government will have made it impossible to earn a living growing real food, on farms. I wonder if they will keep a few farms working, to act as museums of the past.

Global warming, if we were lucky enough for it to be true, would open up vast tracts of northern land, now too cold, for agriculture, a true green revolution, if only that was what they wanted.

Sowat, the greatest killer by starvation was the socialists collective farming revolution, in the USSR, & China.

Without capitalists farming activity many millions more would have starved, as the free world would not have had the food to save them from their own stupidity.

Try some facts, rather than propaganda some time.

Great article and thank you Stezza for your comment.

lillian, I agree that there are issues with major agribusiness. But the last time I checked these companies were for-profit corporations. Sometimes they push certain products over others, it happens with everything from fast food to airlines etc. Buyer beware is key. Lack of transparency and corruption that may prevent proper access to information is a different issue and not limited to any one industry if news reports from the last decades are any indication.

Also, to show that not all "genetic engineering is a failure," as lillian puts it, take a look at the following: http://www.goldenrice.org/
This is one example (that's right, one of many) of how genetic engineering is being used to promote better health around the world. There are always two sides to every coin.

We have never been so lucky in the history of mankind, at least in developed countries. Yet you fail to mention that in some of those countries where people starve and live in slums the real cause is far more complex: power-hungry dictators, corruption, broken legal systems, violence etc. Granted some of the causes of these corrupt dictators etc may be linked to agribusiness, but there are other causes too.

A little long and from 2005, but I think it's a good read: http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/FA-subramanian0705.pdf

http://currentglobalperceptions.blogspot.com/

*the reason that so many human beings go to bed hungry every day or die because of malnutrition is the greed and indifference of the shareholders and exective managers of giant, vertically-intergrated, multi-national corporations*

Not so, Sowat. The reason so many go to bed hungry, is that many of
their parents simply don't have access to family planning in the third world.

There are many political and religious reasons for this.

Even in the third world, sex is a normal and natural activity. We
humans enjoy it, that does not mean that we want to create more
children.

Stop blaming corporations for political and religious failure.