High food prices and global grain shortages may force governments from China to Britain to rethink opposition to genetically modified crops, analysts say.
Asian manufacturers are buying genetically modified corn for food stuffs, U.S. wheat growers look to biotechnology to boost yields and European agricultural leaders view engineered crops as a way to alleviate the strain on the worldwide agriculture market, The New York Times reported Monday.
Genetically modified crops that are disease resistant or drought tolerant could provide an alternative to alleviate the global stress.
"I think it's pretty clear that price and supply concerns have people thinking a little bit differently today," Steve Mercer with the U.S. Wheat Associates told the Times.
The re-evaluation comes as riots were reported in bread lines in Egypt and other regions, European livestock face critical feed shortages and biofuels strain the market.
Some global leaders aren't convinced genetics provide the answer, Hans Herren, co-chairman of an agriculture forum at the World Bank, told the Times.
"What farmers really are struggling with are water issues, soil fertility issues and market access for their products," he said.
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Comment: Yes, alleviating the food crisis is a laudible aim, however this article only serves to confuse the issue. The food crisis is not caused by some mysterious all-pervasive substandard crop quality to be fixable by some genetic 'magic bullet'.
Food-price shocks are a result of financial manipulation of the world's markets. Starvation is caused by economic and military destruction. No amount genetically engineered tomatoes can alter the fact that genocide, economic blockades, corporate/political theft on a global scale, are what cause hunger.
Genetically modified foodstuffs are being heavily pushed by the same players who participate in all the above, so why? The most significant result of genetically modified crops, to date, is that 'terminator seeds' have been developed and are widely pushed. These seeds are sterile, producing only a single generation of crop that cannot produce its own seeds. So, farmers are 'locked in' to keep re-buying seeds from the manufacturer, year after year. How in the world, does THAT alleviate the food crisis?! Obviously it doesn't, it simply adds to the hunger and poverty, and feeds the greed of the pathological corporations that set up this situation.