Scientific American: How to make more food with transgenic crops

[pokerfan]

SAN DIEGO—In the next 50 years, humans will have to produce as much food as we have over the entire history of civilization. The planet’s ever-expanding population demands it. Yet productive farmland is scarce, and other resources such as water and fertilizer (which is made from fossil fuels) become more constrained by the day.

Such is the dilemma of the world’s agronomists, as described this weekend at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Fortunately, clever scientists are not without solutions. Jonathan Lynch of Pennsylvania State University argued that our present circumstances demand what amounts to a “second green revolution.” The first, he said, occurred in the 1960s. The widespread use of fertilizer in the developed world actually reduced the yields of crops such as corn—the extra nutrients made the plants grow so tall that they would simply fall over. The solution involved the development of dwarf varieties of corn and rice that could (quite literally) stand up to added fertilization.

What we need now, he says, is a system that expands yields in poor soil without the use of fertilizer, which is still prohibitively expensive in much of the world. The need is dire: every year Africa loses 95 percent of its potential corn yield to infertile soil, and more than seven million children under five die from hunger.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=how-to-make-more-food-with-transgen-2010-02-22&print=true

[bananas]

1. Genetic engineering could easily double the food supply

"The solution involved the development of dwarf varieties of corn and rice that could (quite literally) stand up to added fertilization."

We could easily double the food supply by applying this to humans - genetically engineer humans into dwarf varieties. If we were half the size, we'd eat half as much food, effectively doubling the food supply. Alternatively, it would allow twice as many humans, allowing us to "(quite literally) stand up to added fertilization."

[RC]

2. Wrong paradigm!

The more food we grow, the more people there will be and the more starving people we will have. The more resources we will need to survive. Where will this energy come from to grow our food when we run out of oil?

We need to get our population under control or 'Mother Nature' will do it for us. We are already well past what this planet can handle. We are fishing out the oceans, destroying the ecology of every place we go for places to live and grow food.

[pokerfan]

3. uplifting the third world is the best (and most humane) population control

Less famine, less disease, less war.