Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
agriculture, to competition in the seed business, and
to the size and sustainability of our commodity crop
monocultures.
—Michael Pollan, “Pointed Talk: Michael Pollan and
Amy Harmon Dissect a GM Controversy,” Grist.com,
August 28, 2013, accessed August 30, 2013 at
h t t p : //
If a perilous crop disease threatens the food supply the
types and varieties of crops planted may need to be altered.
It might be prudent to cross (i.e., breed) the most popular
varieties with less popular varieties to acquire more genetic
diversity. But if these less popular varieties are no longer
around because farmers have not purchased them in years,
the only way of quickly acquiring diversity is genetic modi-
fication, radiation-induced mutation, or the like. Thus, some
apprehensive groups have been storing all the different variet-
ies of seeds they can acquire in frozen vaults (in Norway, for
instance), an insurance policy that might save millions of lives.
Are we losing genetic variety in our crops? A recent
National
Geographic
article documents a decline in variety for sixty-six
crops between 1903 and 1983, such that we lost 93 percent of
our varieties during that time period. Yet a different study of
seed catalogs over that same time period found the number
of varieties to have risen for some crops and fallen for others,
but overall found no difference—implying we are not losing
crop diversity. It is currently unclear which study better rep-
resents reality.
Suppose that in the future, genetic diversity in crops is lost,
and suppose the change is largely due to successful GM crops.
Does that alone put the food supply in danger? Not necessar-
ily. If, say, a horrible bout of rust (a fungal disease) wipes out
much of the wheat, one response could be to cross the current
wheat crop with more antiquated varieties, hoping some of
the crosses would be resistant to the rust. Or scientists at seed
