KPLU Local News
(2010-02-28)
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A growing population and rising temperatures from climate change could lead to a food crisis by mid-century. That's why a U.W. professor is calling for radically rethinking agriculture, including an emphasis on genetically-modified crops and other biotechnologies.
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David Battisti is a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington and one of the authors of an article in the journal Science. One key fact sticks with him: that when it gets hotter than about 86 degrees, plants have a harder time with photosynthesis.
"If you live anywhere between, say, southern California and South Africa, in those latitude bands, which is more than half of the world's population today, you already exceed the optimum temperatures for photosynthesis and food production," he says. "And as the temperature has been going up in those regions, you can actually measure the decline in agricultural yields."
Hot places - such as Mexico or California - can partially compensate for the heat with lots of water. Nonetheless, Battisti says it's projected that by mid- century, climate change will cause crop yields in the tropics to drop by as much as 30 percent.
"To overcompensate for that you'd have to have yield increases due to technology that exceed those of the Green Revolution."
The so-called "Green Revolution" started after World War II. New technologies dramatically boosted global food production. Battisti and his co-authors argue that in order to do that again, world leaders have to embrace genetically-modified crops designed to thrive in harsh conditions.
There are widespread concerns about potential long-term health and environmental impacts of GM crops. Some scientists say not enough is known about how these man-made organisms interact with nature. And the fact that these seeds are copyrighted intellectual property that has to be purchased each year has led to protests from poor farmers who traditionally save their seed to plant next season.
Battisti acknowledges that's a problem. Still, he says technology will have to play a major role if food supplies are going to keep up with the growing demand. He calls for more publicly-funded biotech research to make those benefits more widely available to farmers in developing countries.
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