VIEWPOINT : Our world needs biotech foods
North Dakota’s Grand Forks Herald posted the following commentary from Bruce Freitag. The commentary focuses on the need by farmers to adopt new technologies in order to “meet this global demand for food, feed, fiber and fuel.” He specifically cites India and China as countries that are demanding more meat and protein, and many are calling for a new “Green Revolution” and easy access to modern technologies to boost productivity. Read more of this commentary beow.
C.S. Prakash
VIEWPOINT : Our world needs biotech foods
Grand Forks Herald
February 22, 2008
SCRANTON, N.D. - Just before giving up his post as interim U.S. agriculture secretary last month, Chuck Conner warned that growing enough corn, soybeans and wheat to meet food, feed and biofuel demands this year is going to be “very dicey.” We farmers were up to the challenge this year, but many of us are concerned that we will be denied the tools we need for the long run, he noted.
Renewable fuels are a new challenge. Congress has mandated 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels per year by 2022 - a 130 percent increase over current ethanol production levels. Corn-based ethanol is expected to be about 40 percent of that.
Add in the vagaries of climate. Two years ago, drought in France and Spain resulted in the worst corn production in 50 years. In Australia, where drought has been persistent since 2002, some wheat farmers failed to harvest a crop for the first time in 40 years.
Wheat yields were also disappointing in Europe. U.S. corn production was down 5 percent because of drought in 2006, but it rebounded in 2007.
In December, Jacques Diouf, the head of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, warned that people were already starting to go hungry in poor countries because hotter weather was shrinkingthe food supply and pushing up prices.
