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Genetic Research is Key to Addressing Growing Global Food Shortage |
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Written On: Friday, April 18, 2008 |
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Written By: Don C. Brunell |
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While Americans fixate on $4 a gallon gasoline and rising grocery bills, United Nations leaders have deeper concerns—the growing inability to feed the impoverished.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently warned that a rapidly escalating global food crisis has reached crisis proportions and threatens to wipe out seven years of progress in the fight against poverty.
President Bush ordered the release of $200 million in emergency aid to help nations where surging food prices have deepened hunger woes. The President's move came one day after World Bank President Robert Zoellick appealed to governments to provide the U.N. World Food Program with $500 million in emergency aid by May 1.
One reason food is in short supply is farmers are sending corn, soybeans and sugar cane to ethanol refineries. In fact, Time magazine reports that one-fifth of the U.S. corn crop now goes to energy production.
Soaring corn prices sparked riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, an essential ally of the U.S. and coalition forces fighting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
That is where wheat comes in. Wheat represents almost a third of the world’s grain crops. It is not widely considered an energy source, and the UN estimates that 598 million tons of wheat will be harvested this year to feed people. But recurring droughts, along with increasing demand, have pushed the price of wheat to as much as $20 a bushel, up from $4.50 a year or so ago. U.S. wheat reserves are now at the lowest levels in 30 years, and Canadian wheat stocks are a third of normal.
As demand for wheat is growing, Ug99, a new strain of rust disease, is turning golden wheat fields into a tangled mess of black and broken stems. The situation has the makings of a global pandemic.
That’s where genetic modification comes in. While some activists rail against genetic modification of plants and want to halt all research, stopping the new Ug99 epidemic in Kenya and Ethiopia from spreading is essential before its airborne spores infect the rest of the world.
The possibility of a catastrophic worldwide wheat-crop loss caught the attention of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which recently awarded researchers at Cornell University $26.8 million to develop improved rust resistant wheat varieties and set up wheat-rust screening facilities in both African countries.
In the near term, scientists worry that Ug99 will spread to Asia, particularly India and Pakistan, where more than 50 million small-scale farmers tend 296 million acres of wheat fields – more than half the world’s wheat fields. These small farmers are more vulnerable than large producers like those in the United States.
The world has seen the devastation caused by widespread crop failures. The 1845 Irish Potato Famine killed more than 750,000 people. The culprit was a fungus that turned non-resistant spuds to inedible slime. Irish potatoes, called “lumpers,” were genetically identical, so they were all susceptible to the blight. Because the Irish population was so dependent on the potato, the blight caused widespread starvation. One in eight Irish people died, and two million fled their homeland. In just five years, the population of Ireland was reduced by 25 percent.
There is a parallel for wheat and other crops as well. Without genetic modification, there is a growing risk of widespread crop failures and famine, and with more and more food crops being diverted to energy production, Americans not only face stiffer prices at the pump but also at the grocery store. However, the rest of the world, particularly poor countries, faces food shortages, starvation and growing political unrest.
Genetic research will give us a chance to prevent such a catastrophe.
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