9.7 billion by 2050 - Are GMOs the answer?

The world population is growing.  We all know this and hear about it all the time, but how are we going to feed all these people?   Are GMOs the answer?  Can conventional breeding keep up with the rise in population?    Some may argue that we don't need to worry at all.  They would say why worry when already have enough food for today's population, but we just re not distributing it around the world efficiently.   If we do a better job with food distribution then we can already feed more people.

  As a society we do waste more food than we should, but the reality is we are not feeding everyone in the world with our current system.  Sure we could make logistical improvements and feed more people.   However think about the situation we will be in when the population does indeed go up.  If we can't feed the world now, how are we going to feed the world with a population that continues to increase.

When we talk about the world's population increasing we are talking about a huge number of people.  Right now the Earth is home for 7.4 billion people as of 2016.  Estimates vary some about the actual population numbers in the future, but most models are pretty consistent.  Most estimates show that by 2050 our population will increase to approximately 9.7 billion in 2015.

http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/2015-report.html

There is one fact that cannot be argued.   As we have more people live on Earth we will need more food.  Even if we get better at food distribution and waste less, more people will eat more food.   So what is the solution?  I stumbled on a paper that I wanted to delve into.

The paper is about One crop breeding cycle from starvation? How engineering crop photosynthesis for rising CO2 and temperature could be one important route to alleviation

The paper has a lot of information that I will not get into, but there are a couple of take-aways from this paper that are thought provoking.

1.  We don't have infinite land to just grow more crops

Quoting from the paper:  'Human population growth is putting severe pressure on food production to keep up with increasing demand. Two-thirds of calories are derived indirectly or directly from just four crops: rice, wheat, maize and soya bean. In terms of global production of primary foodstuffs, these are the world's top four crops with 741, 716, 1018 and 276 million metric tons, respectively, produced in 2013 [1]. With rising population and changing diet, it is estimated that the world will require 87% more of these primary foodstuffs by 2050.'

The article points out that we needs to increase our staple crops by 87%.   From a study in 2005, we know that we use 40% of the Earth's land in food production.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1209_051209_crops_map.html

Just take a look at this map from National Geographic.  It is pretty clear that land is a finite resource.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/

If we already use 40% and we need to increase by 87%, which is no small feat.  I would even say it is an impossibility.  We still need land to live and we still need to take care of environment.   Gaining access to more land means deforestation mostly of rain forests and this is just not a solution   I am sure humankind will use resort to more deforestation in the future but we also need to make more with less.  The is not what we want to continue:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/

2.  Conventional breeding is not the only answer

Every culture has a staple crop and world has the big 4 consisting of rice, wheat, maize, and soybean.  When thinking about increasing food we have to focus on these.  These crops are what is going to feed the world which means these operations have to be high yielding and efficient.   The problem is that we have already spent years improving these four crops for yield through breeding.  We are seeing that conventional breeding just cannot keep up with the dramatic increase in food production we need.  Yield increases are are plateauing. Conventional breeding is still needed and I have no doubt it will continue to increase yields on its own merits.  However even conventional breeding is not a quick fix.   It takes 7-17 years to release a new cultivar.   If you are interested in conventional breeding development here is a great read:

http://www.cropj.com/shimelis_6_11_2012_1542_1549.pdf


So development of a new conventional breeding cultivar being developed today, which will only have small increases in yield at best, wont come due until possible 2033.  I feel there is the misconception that conventional breeding will fix all our problems just like it always has.  All of this technology whether conventional breeding or GMOs take time and resources.  More importantly they need support.

Quoting for our paper:  'Additionally, the time required by crop breeding and bioengineering to release improved varieties to farmers is substantial, meaning that any crop improvements needed to mitigate food shortages in the 2040s would need to start now.'


3. We need to use all the tools available

So what are the solutions?   There are many possibilities.  Conventional breeding is one.  Breeding will continue to make some gains.  There is also the possibility of insect farming.   Maybe your next loaf of bread will be made with cricket flour.   There is also the fact we spend a lot of our cropland providing food to feed animals.  I love meat in my diet, but the fact is we may need to improve our efficiency of raising animals too.  Lab grown meat is a possibility; we have already seen farm raised GM salmon that grow faster.  We can still become more efficient in how we farm.  Digital farming is becoming better and better to be able micromanage each area of a farm.  Yield maps can be made that correlate to soil parameters so that each part of field can be treated differently to maximize yields.     Of course we cannot rule out GMOs either.   As the technology improves I really believe it will be one answer to increase our yields.  The authors of the paper we have been discussing have talked about increasing a plant's ability to use carbon dioxide more efficiently to increase yields.  There are even more approaches from a biotech side that in combination with all these other tools can help make sure we feed everyone.

The take home is that we can't just wait until 2040 or 2050 to worry about this problem.  All the potential solutions on the table take time to research and develop.  It does not help when many are adverse to biotech solutions.   Even some governments are not asking science based questions when it comes to approving GMO crops.   We need to open our minds to all the tools, answer our questions with science and fact, and educate on this topic.  Just because we have food on our tables does not mean we are less responsible to make sure future generations have food as well .  We don't want to be "One crop Breeding cycle from starvation."


If you want to take a deeper dive into other solutions for feeding the growing population, the national geographic article is very good:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/feeding-9-billion/

The paper discussed in this article also has another blog post that covers some of the same opinions, but is also worth reading.  I did not get into organic farming and the increasing population which this blog does touch on.

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-need-for-improved-food-production/




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