By 2050, the global population will grow nearly 40 percent to reach 8.9 billion, according to the United Nations.
And all these people will need to eat.
Here's the problem: Feeding them all will require the current global food output to double or even triple. Genetically engineered food may just pose the best solution to this upcoming dilemma.
"Genetic engineering" is nothing new to the agriculture industry; farmers have always experimented with crossbreeding seeds to produce better, more weather-resistant and better-tasting crops. However, modern biotechnology involves genetic modification: the selective transfer of genes from one organism to another.
Ordinary breeding can combine related varieties, but it cannot take a gene from a bacterium, for instance, and transfer it to a wheat plant. The new organisms resulting from gene transfers are called "transgenic" by scientists, and "Frankenfood" by the anti-biotech crowd.
These transgenic crops promise enormous potential for the future of farming. Today, scientists already have revolutionized the way many common crops are cultivated.
Farmers always have had to plough soil to control weeds; the down side is that plowed soil, having been stirred up and turned over again and again, becomes lifeless. Once a tract of land is farmed, planters have to move on to a new area to give the land time to revitalize the soil. This practice is very hard on the land and has related environmental complications. As October's issue of The Atlantic Monthly points out, "The point is not that farming is an environmental crime - it is not - but that there is no escaping the pressure it puts on the planet."
One of these new trends is no-till farming, which involves growing crops without plowing the land. Biotech already has improved this situation in one area. Genetically engineered crops can prevent habitat destruction by allowing the same land to be farmed more productively and multiple times.
Genetically modified soybeans called Roundup Ready tolerate Roundup, an herbicide that kills many kinds of weeds and then quickly breaks down into harmless ingredients. Farmers using Roundup Ready can control weeds with just a few applications of a single, relatively harmless herbicide instead of multiple applications of more harmful products. The most important benefits of such crops are twofold: Current land is being used more efficiently, and pesticide also is being used less.
Scientists also have produced salt-tolerant crops and a cotton plant that produces its own pesticide. This transgenic cottonseed reduced pesticide use by more than 2 million pounds in the United States from 1996 to 2000 and reduced pesticide sprayings in parts of China by more than half.
It seems strange then, given all these potential benefits, that many environmentalist groups have spoken out against genetically modified food. Both the Sierra Club and Green Peace have objected to genetically engineered crops. They say these crops pose unacceptable risks to biodiversity and the ecosystem.
In addition, consumers also have been somewhat hesitant in the past to buy the new "Frankenfoods." But as The Economist reported in July, "there is no evidence to suggest that today's GM [genetically modified] crops are less safe to eat than conventional foods."
While it is true that certain ecological risks are involved in genetic modification of crops, the huge potential benefits certainly outweigh these risks. The important thing is that the government creates a regulatory system to ensure that there is enough supervision in this ultramodern industry.
In the future, we will have to find ways to maintain our agricultural output while doing as little environmental damage as possible. That is where biotechnology comes in.
"Experts say 60 percent to 70 percent of processed foods on U.S. grocery shelves have genetically modified ingredients," according to WebMD. And this number will continue to rise in coming years.
In the future fight to feed the world, genetic engineering will be a key player.
Ishtiaque Masud is an economics junior. You can reach him at ishtiaque.masud@asu.edu.
