How can Biotechnology ease world food shortages?
There are a number of ways that biotechnology could ease food shortages. Since the dawn of farming men have been selecting and nurturing plants that give a good yield and are edible. It is feasible that biotech such as genetic engineering can step in and accelerate the process- for example, by making a kind of wheat that flourishes at high temperatures but doesn’t need a lot of water, famine in desert regions could be avoided- the plants could be designed to fit in and flourish in a particular environment, and the yields of existing, successful genuses could also be boosted. At the same time, biotechnology alone may not be enough- in the 70s there was a ‘green’ revolution where new crops were brought out that responded better to fertiliser than those before, and yields were increased dramatically. Problems persist to this day because of the unequal distribution of goods. I mean, on the one hand, obesity in the UK is rife, but we may be throwing away 30% of the food we buy.
