ISAAA chief said biotech crops only way out of global poverty, food crises

September 17, 2010 |

In Canada, Dr. Clive James, executive director of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), said that “In the next 50 years, the global population will consume two times as much food as humans have consumed since the beginning of agriculture 10,000 years ago,” in a keynote at the Agricultural Biotechnology International Conference (ABIC 2010) in Saskatoon.

He pointed out that the world has only five years to achieve the United Nations’ Millennium Development goal of cutting poverty in half by 2015, yet the ranks of the world’s poor have now swelled to one billion for the first time in history. James said that conventional farming technology will not allow humanity to double food production as it must do by 2050 to feed a population of nine billion. “This must be done using fewer resources such as land, water, fertilizers, and pesticides. And it must be done in such a way that small farmers-who make up 70 per cent of the world’s poor-can easily participate,” he added.

“Biotechnology, and genetically modified crops specifically, can help alleviate poverty,” he concluded, noting that 85 million farmers are now using GMO crops.

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Category: Fuels

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