Between smartphones, social media, electric cars, and other advances in electronics, technology is a rapidly growing industry. Usually, these advances are pretty well-accepted by the public as they can help increase efficiency, expand creativity, and even reduce our global footprint. What if there was a technology that could potentially end world hunger? Would it be readily embraced?

Genetically modified food has been available for decades and gives farmers the ability to produce more food in less time. Last year, over 17.3 million farmers opted to plant genetically modified food. Over 90% of those farmers were in developing nations that needed any extra food they could get. By 2050, the global population is expected to jump to a staggering 9 billion from the current 6 billion. Many people believe that standard food production methods aren’t enough to satisfy those 9 billion hungry mouths.

Genetically modified food is one area of technology that some people strongly oppose. Because so many people are against agriculture technology of this sort, the political and legal hoops that farmers must jump through to gain approval to plant and sell the products are intense and even hostile. And sometimes unnecessary. Alison Van Eenennaam, UC Davis animal genomics and biotechnology specialist, says “we and our livestock have consumed billions of meals and there hasn’t been one documented case of the [genetically modified] nature of the material consumed causing safety or health problems.” She also claims that in a world where the priority should be placed on feeding its ever growing population, the “absolutely precautionary, prohibitively expensive, time-consuming, uncertain regulatory approach to [genetically modified] plants and animals” is preventing the world from achieving that very goal.

– Katie Brockman
Source: Beef Magazine
Photo: Huffington Post