ARTICLE: GMO Crops A Priority For The Laborers And The Poor In Uganda
The following is an excerpt of a blog post on the religious website Patheos discussing the need for options like GMOs in Uganda, which faces many issues in food and agriculture.
Most of the readers of this blog are likely evidence-based thinkers and are supportive of science-based solutions for real-world problems. As such, we support the use of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), which we recognize as safe and effective technology. GMOs will be necessary to keep up with future agricultural demands. Our global population continues to increase, while we have nearly maximized our amount of arable land for growing crops, leading to a projected net decrease in cropland per person by 2050. We can design GMOs to become resistant to diseases, help them become more drought-resistant, and even change their cosmetic properties so fewer people discard food unneccessarily, allowing us to get the most food out of our limited arable farmland. GMOs will be necessary for a growing planet with limited resources.
If you’re like me, you may get the sense that GMOs, like renewable energy and emission mitigation, are long-term problems that will require some patience developing technologies and implementing effective political solutions. While we can recognize anti-GMO ideology relies on pseudoscience and we need to push back on that, we may not feel like anti-GMO sentiments are a high political priority compared to many of the other problems we currently face. While long-term goals may be many GMO proponents’ primary goal, there are still problems that we need to deal with now that appear to be much more pressing. However, there are global issues where GMOs are exactly the solution needed, and we need science-based solutions like these as soon as possible.
Uganda is currently facing a massive drought, something that has been occurring since 2016. This has led to record-high temperatures and left millions of Ugandans in need of food aid. This is to be expected when there is a natural crisis like this in Uganda, where 80% of the population is employed in agriculture. Because of reduced rainfall and increased temperature, the drought has been a major contributor to loss in crops like bananas and coffee, and further loss in livestock due to a decrease in feedstocks to help them survive.
This is a problem that severely affects the poor in this country. Once the drought hits, this large population of laborers are the first to be affected, especially if their only source of food and income starts vanishing. GMOs are solutions to these problems, and agricultural laborers should be allowed to have direct access to a wide variety of resistant strains during a time when they need them the most.
To read the entire article, please visit the Patheos website.
