Genetically modified food could help feed 10 billion people in 2050, says expert

Rapidly multiplying salmon, wheat which is drought resistant, and rice that releases limited amount of methane — all these could soon be feeding the growing global population, according to an expert who said that genetically modified food holds the key to future food security.

Dr. Daniel Kovich, who serves as a Science Advisor at the United States Department of Agriculture, was speaking in Dubai as part of the international food safety conference on the topic of biotechnology and how it could feed 10 billion people by 2050.

He gave the example of low methane rice and drought-resistant wheat, both of which are now in the experimental stage. “Rice production produces a lot of methane,” he said. “With one gene insertion from barley plant, that changes the way the plants interact with the soil to decrease methane production. Another example is wheat, which is resistant to drought by inserting a gene from the sunflower plant.”

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A genetic modification in salmon could cause an increase in its growth rate — a method, he said, has already been commercialised. “It grows much faster with the same feeding points as conventional salmon,” he said, adding it was the first animal application of this technology.

Several examples

Dr Kovich said the genetically modified Bt corn has become increasingly popular in the US with over 92 per cent of the current agriculture land growing corn having this genetically modified variant.

He explained that scientists noticed that there was bacteria in the soil that had gene which produced very strong effects against insects. “Through trials, they added the gene to the corn plant with the result that the plant became resistant to insects like European corn borner and corn rootworm,” he said. “This dramatically decreases insecticide use and increases corn production.”

He also gave examples of roundup ready soybeans and rainbow papaya, both of which increased agricultural production significantly. He said, when such crops are introduced and farmers are given access, they prefer it over the regular variants because of the monetary benefits.

Challenges