Over the weekend, Justin Gillis of The New York Times published his extensive article underscoring a serious and growing global health problem: food shortages and undernourishment. Hundreds of millions of impoverished people remain hungry and, in addition to population increases and rising food prices, Gillis attributes to global warming much of this failure to meet food demand. Rising carbon dioxide levels have led to sharp changes in weather and climate, he claims, leading farmers to face devastating blows in terms of crop yield.
But ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross is somewhat skeptical: “I was surprised to read in this article that global warming, to whatever extent it’s ongoing, has proceeded at a pace rapid enough to have already caused such widespread climatic disruptions and the attendant agricultural consequences, which the author has taken as a given.”
Despite warning us about the unfortunate repercussions of climate change, it seems as though Gillis consciously omits any suggestion of agricultural biotechnology as a solution to the clear evidence of a new, growing food shortage — though he alludes to it many times. For instance, he refers to Nobel Laureate Dr. Norman Borlaug, founding director of ACSH and father of the Green Revolution, who improved wheat crop varieties that led to an increased food supply across much of the developing world. Thanks to the Green Revolution, food output rose, staple grains became cheaper, and the percentage of hungry people in the world shrank. But recent spikes in food costs seem to be reversing the trend as we witness the largest increases in world hunger in decades.
Though Gillis’s article glances at the advent of flood-tolerant rice, illustrating how far scientists may be able to go toward helping farmers fight the wrath of Mother Nature, he never clearly acknowledges that genetically modified (GM) foods could be the next Green Revolution.
“Whether you believe in global warming, bad weather, or just bad luck, it doesn’t matter,” says ACSH's Dr. Josh Bloom. “The world has a food shortage now, and the intelligent way to deal with it is by expanding the use of GM crops. Using this technology will help us deal with the problem. It is unfortunate that many people are so misinformed about this, and this article will not serve to educate anyone.”
