Quote from: Mrs. Nigelson on October 30, 2013, 11:50:45 PMQuote from: Kai on October 30, 2013, 11:32:09 PM
You know, Nigel, I'm thinking back to that BookFace thread where I got butthurt and you were probably right. Sticking a single gene into a plant to make it produce a pesticide is a rather crude solution. It's a band aid, really. Any pest insect species subjected to a strong enough selection pressure will develop resistance eventually. Equally crude is giving plants herbicide resistance. These are quick fixes. These are first generation transgenic plants, much like the first generation of automobiles, or the first generation of airplanes, or the first generation of computers. They WORK, and at the time they look cool. But remember watching those movies from the 1950s and seeing those clunky gigantic mainframe supercomputers, and thinking that all of that computing technology could now be held in the palm of your hand? Yeah.
Monsanto is playing the first generation game. They have the big boxy supercomputers. But the Rice Initiative is making smartphones.
The irony, of course, being that unless we overcome the problems with food distribution and politicking that are the root of most famine, being able to produce more nutritious and more efficient crops is itself nothing more than a token gesture. Africa has enough arable land to feed the entire world using ordinary crops and ordinary sustainable farming methods, yet is home to some of the most food-poor regions in the world. For some reason people are married to the idea that we have a shortage of farmland, or will face one soon, but not only is farmland being abandoned on a mass scale, but the prices at which big agriculture is able to produce more cheap food (due in part to government subsidies) are driving small farmers out of business all over the world.
I appreciate the idealism behind the research, and I appreciate research for its own sake, but I seriously doubt that more food cheaper is going to result in an improved situation, unless major institutional changes accompany it.
I can't do anything about the institutional changes. All I can do is promote Science. And it's not just about cheapness. Water shortage is a huge problem, as is fertilizer use. Given that it's the staple crop for the majority of humans, and that 20% of all energy consumed is rice, and that rice farming is heavily water and fertilizer intensive, increasing the efficiency of yield is very much something to work towards.