by Ashmin

Created on: May 02, 2008   Last Updated: May 07, 2008

According to WHO, there is enough food on the planet to feed every single person, yet there are millions of malnourished , starving , children all over the world. Millions of farmers remain poor and lack access to modern science and technology. At any one time, 850 million people remain hungry.
Demographers project that earth's population will peak during the 21st century at approximately ten billion people. But the amount of new cultivable land that can be brought under production is limited and depleting.

Farming, the world's biggest industry, uses about 40 per cent of the earth's ice-free land surface. About one-third of this area, i.e.; 11 percent of earth's total land, is used for crops. The balance, roughly one-fourth of earth's land area, is pastureland, which includes cultivated or wild forage crops for animals and open land used for grazing.

The Green Revolution helped world food production to increase at a faster rate than the population growth from 1950 onwards. Technological advances such as large-scale irrigation, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, and capital investment have increased sharply. Scientific advances such as development of higher-yielding crop varieties have also contributed to increased productivity.
However, these increases relied on synthetic fertilizer and irrigation because green revolution plant varieties were designed to produce high yields when supplied with high inputs of nitrogen and water. Now the abuse of land for a long time has resulted in non-productive land, and the residues of the synthetic fertilizer getting in the food chain. The age old tradition of growing leguminous crops is desirable as it replenishes the soil and a variety of crops can be grown along side.
The key word in the next century farming is organic'. On an average ,organic farming conserves biodiversity, improves the organic content and structure of the soil, leaches less nitrates into our water bodies and also reduces pesticide pollution.
Genetic engineering should not just be a tool used to increase quality and quantity of the food crops, but it should be implemented in all other aspects of farming , even to assist in the biological control of pests. The biggest drawback of GM farming is that it ultimately will effect the gene pool if not cautiously controlled, and science still cannot predict the effect of GM foods on humans in the long run. GM foods are not the answer to feeding the hungry, but genetic engineering cautiously implemented, and extensive organic farming by everyone who can, even in their own backyard will save the invaluable bounty that we have , our earth. And fair trade, between all the farmers rich and poor across the world will , bring us a day when not a single person will sleep hungry. Every time we snack on a chocolate bar , we should make sure that it is fair trade, or else we might be snacking on someone else's tears .

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