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Thursday, 17 September 2009 16:24 |
AgBioView / Times Online (UK)
September 14, 2009
Times Online (UK)
Mark Henderson
September 14, 2009
http://timesonline.typepad.com/
Norman Borlaug, who died on Saturday, can justifiably be regarded as one of the greatest figures of the 20th century. His agricultural innovations, such as the development of higher-yielding dwarf wheat, led directly to the Green Revolution, and they have been widely credited with saving a billion lives that might otherwise have been lost to starvation. The Times carries his obituary today.
His passing, though, is a good moment to look at the agricultural challenges that lie ahead of us, as we prepare to feed a world that is forecast to reach 9 billion by 2040. The need for higher-yielding crops is today just as acute as it was in the post-war years when Borlaug made his advances, as the scientist himself was always keen to point out.
A few quotes from Borlaug highlighted by John Hawks set out the challenge particularly clearly. Borlaug was well aware that if we are to protect our planet's biodiversity, while also feeding its increasing number of human residents, it will be impossible to bring more land under cultivation. We need every tool available to us to make the land that is already farmed more productive -- including, as Borlaug put it, "proper use of genetic engineering and biotechnology".
He was right. GM crops will not, on their own, feed the world. But we would be exceptionally foolish to deny ourselves their contribution to that goal -- even if they will, in places, have a negative impact on biodiversity. They will often be the least worst way of balancing the competing demands of people and the environment.
I'm reminded here of a talk I heard Lord May of Oxford, the former President of the Royal Society and Government chief scientist, give a few years ago, which greatly influenced my thinking about GM crops.
Agriculture, he said, is by its nature an unnatural practice, and its goal has always been to create plentiful crops that "no-one eats but us". We manage farmland in such a way as to minimise loss to weeds, birds and insects, while seeking to improve its yields with manure, artificial fertiliser and irrigation. GM crops create an opportunity to take that process a stage further, so that our species is increasingly the only one that eats the crops we sow in our fields.
This may have a damaging impact on farmland biodiversity, as birds, insects and the like no longer find food in cultivated fields. It is beyond dispute, I woud say, that GM technology has the potential to work this way, though certain applications of it may also target pests while sparing other species. But as Lord May pointed out, that doesn't necessarily mean they are bad for the environment as a whole.
The issue, which Borlaug also understood well, is this. As the population grows, humanity is faced with a choice. We can bring new land that is currently wilderness under cultivation (this would certainly be required were we to aspire to feed the entire world by organic methods, for example). Or we can make the farmland we already have work harder, by improving its yields.
The latter step will almost certainly damage biodiversity on that farmland -- but as its biodiversity is already limited, the extra cost will not be great. Clearance of forests and jungles, however, will have a much more devastating impact, as wilderness is a much richer habitat for wildlife than is farmland.
I hope that as we celebrate Borlaug's achievements, we can also learn from his perceptive approach to the future of agriculture. We will need to improve yields if we are to feed a growing population without destroying the little wilderness we have left. GM crops will not be the only method of achieving this, but they are a powerful one that we cannot afford to abandon.
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