Genetically-modified crops could help prevent a future global hunger crisis, the government’s chief scientific adviser said yesterday.
Sir John Beddington, professor, said there was no one “silver bullet” to the “enormously serious” problem of feeding the world in the future in the face of problems such as climate change, population growth and energy shortages.
He told BBC Breakfast: “If there are genetically modified (GM) organisms that actually solve problems that we can’t solve in other ways, and are shown to be safe from a human health point of view, and safe from an environmental point of view, and they can solve problems we can’t solve otherwise, then we should use them.
“The sort of problems I am thinking of are new diseases which are likely to come with climate change, problems to do with drought, problems to do with the salination of ground, we need organisms that actually address that.”
Sir John was speaking in advance of the publication of a government-commissioned report warning that urgent action is needed to avert global hunger on a huge scale in the future. Factors such as a growing global population, climate change, scarcity of water and energy will put massive pressure on food production, the report is expected to warn.
“I don’t think we are going to run out (of food) if we get it right, but the point is, we don’t have time to actually relax and say things are fine - in 20 years’ time, the world population is going to be sky high, demand for food, demand for water, demand for energy, is going to be way up there,” he said.
Sir John said there were “many solutions” to preventing a hunger crisis, including using current knowledge of farming techniques to “significantly improve” the productivity of small farmers in Africa.
“There is no silver bullet, we have got to approach this on a lot of different fronts,” he told BBC Breakfast.
Speaking to The Observer newspaper, Sir John said the world faced a “perfect storm” of issues that could lead to widespread food shortages and public unrest over the next few decades.
Sir John, who was professor of applied population biology at Imperial College, London, until his appointment as chief scientific adviser in 2008, said the world’s population was growing by six million a month.
“A number of very important factors are about to change our world,” he told The Observer.
“Its population is rising by six million every month and will reach a total of around 9,000 million by 2050.
“At the same time, it is estimated that by 2030 more than 60 per cent of the population will be living in cities and will no longer be involved in growing crops or raising domestic animals.
“And on top of that, the world’s population is getting more prosperous and able to pay for more food.”
He said the world will need 40 per cent more food, 30 per centmore water and 50 per cent more energy by the middle of the century at a time when climate change will be starting to have serious environmental impacts on the planet.