Session 7

This week's lesson was the second part on biotech revolution. It concentrated on the 2nd most widely used application of biotech - on agriculture. Yes biotechnology 2nd largest application is on agriculture.

The readings generally told us about the need for biotechnology to grow crops. This is because, to feed a growing world population, more crops must be grown. With biotechnology, crops that can withstand droughts, floods, carry higher nutrition would be favoured over traditional non-transgenic crops. Hence the need for biotechnology. With biotechnology, crop output would also get higher, in fact, shockingly enough yes, to feed the world in 2050, you will need an increase of 70% of food production today. It is calculated that 20% of the increase is going to come from more arable land, and 80% from the increase in food crops. Hence, we can see that biotech must play an integral part in increasing food supply for the next 50 years.

A viewpoint I came across was the fear people associate with transgenic foods. How it will/may have repercussions that we cannot see right now. For those organic foodies out there, can you deny that you have never eaten transgenic/GM food? Oh please, seriously. In fact many of our products we eat, if they are from the US, most probably WON'T tell you that its transgenic. Only the Europe people.:) But I mean our seedless grapes, our sweet oranges, our favourite Mr Bean soya bean, rochor tao hway, are all GM food. Soya bean that has gone to make these yummmy foodstuff, most probably, if nearly not all certain, was already GM-ed. So we come back to the class, and there was this lively debate, and the verdict turned out we should just consume GM rice too. I mean even in our readings, Nobel Laurette Norman Boulaug commented that the risks involving consuming GM food should not be a concern, but rather, feeding the people who are starving should be the main point. I mean, if GM food can solve the world's food crisis shouldn't we aim to make it safer rather than trying to go organic and NOT solve humanity's first concern?

Oh yes, one thing I noticed about the GM food hoo-haa is the one on money issues. Yes, GM crops are made by private sector, lots and lots of red tape to overcome, intellectual property issues about who owns the modified genes etc. Frankly speaking, I don't even see a problem in countries not having enough "money" to feed their people. It is because of rampant corruption and greed in the level of the policy makers, I feel that food never reaches where its supposed to reach. International aid is so readily available. Ask and you shall receive. Really. So with the concerns about people not being able to farm their food, because of draught etc, and need for more hardy crops, thats why they need biotech to provide them with these crops (I'm talking about countries like bangladesh) I feel although yes, it is definitely a problem, I don't think that the local authorities are doing enough to help people in their situation. I may be wrong, but currently with the rich poor divide in nearly every country widening, maybe the richer people could/should/would have enough resources to actually help?

Another solution was from Prof Shahi.He believes that the rural environment is getting overcrowded. I mean, we all can think of many reasons why its getting overcrowded. Being from a rural environment, you would not have proper education. Without proper education, you wouldn't know much. From Maslov's hierarchy of needs, it states that sexual experiences is a basic need. So we know why there is overcrowding. More people, less plot of farm land for each person. Prof Shahi recommendation was for them to migrate to urban areas. Although uncertain, with opportunities in the urban areas, doing odd jobs etc, the money gained could be used to translate to more food for themselves. With less people in the rural areas, rural people will have bigger land to farm with and that would translate into more profits with more crop yield. And then they can afford machineries. and then lead to more crop yield. and then better crop seeds, and then more crop yield! and everybody wins. But being human, although this is an option, alot of us don't want to move out of our comfort zones, and thus I believe that if the authorities were to ever think of this solution, they must provide solutions to the unique situations each individual faces. The stress of urban life, or the toil of rural life.

Ultimately, in the future, with the world population growing, the only feasible and viable option is for biotech to solve this problem. The future of farming will no longer be just uneducated people farming. The future of farming will be scientists who with their knowledge and expertise of farming, and GM crops and optimal conditions create an environment more suitable for growing crops. These 'farmist' will be the future of farming. it is really a high tech and high value approach to farming. with economies of scale, food production hence will become cheap, and this is ultimately what we hope to achieve to solve humanity's problem of starvation.

There was this point on if the whole word goes vegan, there will be still sufficient food. However I felt that that was like really unrealistic. 60% of crop output in the US goes to feeding livestalk. If there is a demand for more expensive food, there will always be a supply. If people cannot afford to pay, no one will feed you. This is human nature. Yes, even though with all the advancement in farming tech to create more food etc, I believe that even in 2050, people will be starving even though there would be more than enough food produced to feed the world's population. Now too, people are wasting so much food. How many thousand tonnes of food go to waste every year? In my personal opinion, I would think that there is sufficient food to feed the world right now, but then people are still starving! This is not a food scarcity problem! This is a human perception problem. No matter how much we try to increase food production, if we do not change our human perceptions to be better and more altruistic, there will still be starvation even when men have found life on other planets!

7/10 lesson. Presentations were pretty good, however I felt that at some points in the lesson, talking about agriculture was a tad too stifling... But overall, at least I thought about stuff more! :)