Unfortunately, all of this information—from the yields, to impacts on health and biodiversity, to the policy obstacles related to solving the global food crisis—is difficult to present every time a source says something quotable about GM crops. Useful elaboration eats up space in print and broadcast outlets and defies the rush-to-post mentality of online publications. Nonetheless, reporters must make time to make some sense of the competing claims of the biotech industry (and its government proponents) and groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists. Human life hangs in the balance, and greater clarity is possible.
The Observatory — July 21, 2008 03:41 PM
Can GM Crops Solve the Food Crisis?
UCS says journalists overstate potential for higher yields
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An even more interesting take on GM crops would be their use for biofuels. Crops can be GM to make it easier to refine them for ethanol, produce more ethanol, etc. They are already working on this at Michigan State University.
Posted by Perry Clark on Sat 2 Aug 2008 at 09:43 AM
According to the latest FAO report "Crop Prospects and Food Situation", 100 million tons of grain are being diverted to make biofuel this year, but over seven times as much (754 million tons) will be used to feed animals to produce meat. Depending on the type of animal, it takes up to, and sometimes more than, 10 plant calories to deliver 1 meat calorie. Meat consumption is therefore by far the biggest waste of grain globally.
Possible ways of future nutrition without livestock are presented by the FutureFood-project.
Posted by Harald F on Sun 10 Aug 2008 at 02:18 PM