‘Shortages Are on the Horizon’

But it's the longer-term erosion of the safety margin that really concerns you, right?
Yes. We have got to recognize that we have to increase our food grain supply by 50 percent by 2025. And the way things are shaping up, we're going to have to meet our increased food demand on the same amount of land using less water and probably having less labor available for agriculture. The long-term trends are disturbing, and we have got to invest now to insure that we can ramp up productivity at about the levels the Green Revolution did. We have at our disposal some very powerful scientific tools that can help us do that. The question is whether we will have the resources to develop those tools adequately.

What tools?
We are enjoying the fruits of three simultaneous revolutions. We've had one in molecular biology and genetics, another in computational power and data storage, and a revolution in communications that allows us to exchange data among scientists and work on very large data sets in real time throughout the world. These revolutions have given us the ability to understand how a crop such as rice interacts with a difficult environment. At our institute we have, for example, developed rice that will tolerate prolonged flooding in typhoons or cyclones, which we expect will increase in severity with the changing climate.

Yet fears of genetically modified crops remain palpable in many places. What needs to happen to convince naysayers that they're safe?
People will see over the coming years that [our] molecular tools and genetic engineering are not inherently dangerous. We have been growing [genetically modified crops] for well over a decade now in North America on vast acreages, and no harm has been done to anything or anybody. India and China have adopted transgenic crops—likewise, no harm to the environment. As people internalize that, a comfort level will be established and then gradually transform into [widespread] acceptance. That will be accelerated when people see traits coming out [in the crops] that are of real benefit, particularly to the poor. More nutritious rice, for example, will make a huge difference in the lives of millions of poor children.

And if you go back and look at new technologies that come on, they're always accompanied by fear.
Pasteurized milk took decades to be accepted. People were concerned that if you exceeded 60 miles per hour in a car or a train you'd be crushed by the pressure of the air. If we take a longer view, familiarity will breed acceptance.

Making the case for GM crops would seemingly get easier as fears of food shortages rise.
I don't want to [make the argument] that biotechnology is a silver bullet that will solve all of our problems. I don't believe it. But it is one part of the solution. As we see food shortages occurring and look at some of the transgenic technologies that could help alleviate the stresses leading to those shortages, people will be likely to accept them.

Lester Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, has long argued that one knock-on effect of China's rise is a greater risk of food shortages in Africa. Do you buy that?
It's a point very well taken. In fact, the very rapid growth in India and China, and the impact that has on the consumption of grain in those places, are one of the main drivers of today's [tight grain supply]. If there are grain shortages in China or India, these economies are large enough that they can go onto world markets and source their grains. But other countries that are importers—virtually all of sub-Saharan Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh—will have a hard time sourcing enough grain to feed their people.