A lot of people often tell me, that there are better alternatives to producing more food, without GMO, but they never seem to give me an answer to what those alternatives are. Are there any alternatives? coming from a proGMO person

Expert response from David Oppenheimer

Associate Professor, University of Florida

Thursday, 06/11/2014 15:01

There are several ways in which society could increase the food produced without using GMO, but few would believe that these are "better" than GMO. For example, feeding the animals that we eat requires more resources (land, water, etc.) than if we just consumed the crops that we feed them directly. In other words, if we all became vegetarians, then there would be more food available. However, many would not believe this is "better" than using GMO tools to increase current food production. Another way to increase food production without using GMO tools is to continue traditional breeding approaches, but these are limited by the amount of genetic variation in the current breeding stocks. In addition, lines produced from years of breeding to be resistant to a pest can still suffer from the pest’s becoming resistant. This is not really "better" than using GMO tools to increase food production. Further, farmers are using GPS and remote sensing technology to extract more food from their current acreage. However, this has limits and will not provide enough of an increase to satisfy the growing human population. Again, this is not "better" than using GMO tools to increase food production. So the final answer is that there is not just one perfect method for increasing food production; rather, society must use all the tools available.