Fighting Mother Nature with Biotechnology - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 447

(yet) been shown to cause more harm than good, in spite of considerable effort to iden-
tify actual harms to food or environment (see, e.g., European Commission 2010; Stein
2009). And biotechnology has been shown to increase food, both in quantity and in
quality (National Academy of Sciences 2010). In basic economics, increasing the sup-
ply of any given commodity will lead to a decrease in price. So using biotechnology to
increase food production will lead to reduced cost to consumers. And, as impoverished
people by definition lack wealth, a reduction in food cost will enable them to purchase
more and better food with their limited money. And we can achieve this without taking
excess wealth away from rich people or forcing farmers to hand over their crops.
Conclusion
In the final analysis, genetic engineering is no more than an additional tool added to
the plant breeder's toolbox. The biotechnology tool has no intrinsic value; the tool itself
is neither “good” nor “bad.” Those values are placed on the specific application of the
tool. Indeed, the biotech tool when used to produce pharmaceuticals, e.g., insulin for
diabetics, attracts almost no controversy whatsoever; the same technology to develop
a crop that delivers lifesaving nutrients, e.g., vitamin A in rice, is used by some activ-
ist groups to incite unwarranted public fear and anxiety. Using the biotech tool wisely
can provide more food, healthier food, and more nutritious food in a more sustainable
manner. Alternatively, of course, we humans might use the tool irresponsibly to create
crops that merely drain resources more quickly, accelerating the rate of diminution of
water, soil, and other resources without offering offsetting compensation to humanity.
Perhaps humans will reject the biotech tool entirely and, instead, continue with what
we're currently doing, the status quo, until we exhaust the planetary resources entirely,
accelerating the inevitable mass human starvations. Or we could eschew all of the
“unnatural” tools of industrial agriculture and reclaim our natural niche as nomadic
hunter-gatherers under Mother Nature's guidance.
All of these options are open. But before we reject biotechnology or choose to return
to our “natural” ecological niche, we should contemplate the Malthusian consequences.
The status quo is not a viable, let alone sustainable, option; the historical disorganized
and injudicious application of technology has brought us to where we are, on a fast track
to catastrophic planetary collapse. The awareness of our trajectory has led some to call
for a rejection of human technology altogether, with a return to “natural” systems and
our place in the biosphere, one species among many others, all with an equal right of
access to resources.
But that option is politically impossible when people realize what that choice entails
in terms of abandoning almost all “modern” comforts and conveniences. And Mother
Nature may not welcome us back. The costs certainly are high—the loss of at least half
the current human population and abandonment of most of the technologies that
have allowed us to slip the natural constraints on our species and expand our rather