Gonzalo Oviedo, a senior advisor on social policy with the World Conservation Union, recently performed a compilation study based on various British and American sources on the agricultural state of affairs regarding the global food shortage. He analyzed the subject from the standpoint of environmental sustainability, variable economic resistance and the “systemic marginalization of small producers”.

The environmental sustainability studies he cited emphasized the growing importance of crop biodiversity. According to James Bullock’s study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology (referenced below), crops whose fields were cultivated with a focus on preserving biodiversity had a 43% higher yield than those fields with a monoculture of predominantly genetically modified plants. Because most first world farmlands are devoted to planting only a few crops, this has sparked discussion within the political realm to create legislation regulating the agricultural industries whose predominantly monocultural crops account for much of the global food supply.

Four crops (potato, maize, rice and wheat) provide over half of the plant-based human diet and are being grown in monocultural fields worldwide. To increase crop yield in the short term, much of our agricultural resources are devoted to growing an excess of the small number of genetically modified crops that are in high demand. The concern with this is that the long term food supply may be endangered due to a loss of biodiversity in the field. One solution is to increase regulation of GM crops (a financial staple for many agricultural industries), which may make it difficult for the companies to maintain current levels of food production.

While there is no simple answer to the problem of global food shortage, knowing that maintaining biodiversity may substantially increase yields is welcome news. Perhaps Mother Nature had it right after all.

Discussion Question:
How might regulations on GM crops affect the agricultural industry? How might these regulations be written to not only to improve our long term food supply, but also prevent large industries from going out of business?

Links:
Article link
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7430996.stm

Journal of Applied Ecology concerning biodiversity
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117972249/abstract