The amount of arable land is not growing, and indeed climate-change induced desertification and declining supplies of fresh water are probably decreasing the amount of arable land worldwide. GMO foods -- which have usually been modified so that they are resistant to pesticides or deliver higher yields -- are often promoted as a solution to the perceived coming global hunger crisis (Charles et al
Phosphorous is a non-renewable resource, derived from phosphorous rock, and the global supply is expected to be diminished in the next 50-100 years. Long-term phosphorous scarcity is a high level priority for long-run global food security (Cordell, Drangert & White, 2008)
Globally, agricultural production is sufficient to feed the world's current population. In both high and low income countries, albeit for different reasons, there is a tremendous amount of food waste, which represents an inefficiency in our food system that could help make better use of existing agricultural capacity (Gustavsson, 2011)
GMO proponents cannot stop talking about how safe they are, but the reality is a little bit different. GMO foods were first commercialized in 1994, so twenty-one years ago (Hino, 2002)
The first is that this increased production, GMO or not, remains dependent on the heavy use of phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium in fertilizers. The development of such powerful fertilizer has driven the boom in global food production after World War Two (Huang, Pray & Rozelle, 2002)
In both high and low income countries, albeit for different reasons, there is a tremendous amount of food waste, which represents an inefficiency in our food system that could help make better use of existing agricultural capacity (Gustavsson, 2011). The United Nations estimates that around one-third of global food supply is wasted -- enough to take us from 7 billion people to 9 billion comfortably (Marotte, 2013)
Between eliminating waste and using conventional cross-breeding methodologies alone, food security can be achieved. A classic anecdotal argument is that food aid from the West is under scrutiny as a means of helping alleviate famine because of its GMO content, and that this is wrong (Zerbe, 2004)
Longitudinal Studies One of the arguments in favor of taking a cautious approach, which labeling represents, is that nobody really knows what the health outcomes of genetically-modified foods are. Advocates of genetic modification have argued that there are no demonstrated negative health outcomes from eating genetically-modified foods (Entine, 2014)
There are underlying assumption to the food security argument that in my view undermine the argument. The first is that the world inevitably must increase its population upwards of 11 billion (James & Krattiger, 1996)
There are doubtless many sources in scientific literature showing studies of short-term effects of GMO consumption, but the reality is that there is not a single longitudinal study to demonstrate the safety of GMO foods. The reason for that is simple -- the first GMO food sold only came market in 1994 (Martineau, 2001)
S. corn market, with similar market share for Roundup Ready Soybeans (Morris, 2010)
Other forms of corn will simply vanish. The risk posed to native corn diversity in Oaxaca, the heartland of corn biodiversity, by GMO plantings has become a political flashpoint, with so much corn diversity at risk that the species may never recover were these varieties to be lost (Wilton & Bush, 2013)
Although technological innovation was meant to improve human lives, it has also increased peoples dominance over nature and it continues to be used to increase power and assert this dominance. It will soon reach a point where the desire for power and profits overwhelm concerns for human safety (Jonsen, 2005)
S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has failed to mandate the labeling of GMOs, does not encourage agency studies, and has also allowed companies to sell genetically modified foods without any notification (Peel, 2005)
However, some areas are not conducive to growing crops like desert regions and the like and there is an economic reason why foods are often bought from foreign sources. Indeed, many shoppers go for the lowest price they can find without fail and this would often mean buying a foreign-produced food (Dean, 2015)
They also generally suggest that eating foods that are not genetically "original" could pose unknown safety risks to the people that are eating the foods. While there is seemingly not a "smoking gun" either way, the debate at this point is very rigorous and is far from settled (Waller, 2015)
1). On the other hand, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), another interest group (that has in the past been a critic of food companies and of "artificial and unhealthy ingredients in foods") does not oppose genetically modified foods (Jalonick, 2014)
, 2013). In the survey it was learned that "three-quarters of Americans expressed concern about genetically modified organisms in their food" (Kopicki, p
. the use of recombinant DNA biotechnological procedures that allow the genetic makeup" of the seeds to be changed materially (Schneider, et al
"Public opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) remains strong. By contrast, studies demonstrate again and again that GM crops make a valuable contribution to the development of a sustainable type of agriculture" (Blancke, Van Breusegem, De Jaeger, Braeckman, & Van Montagu, 2015, p