1. Policy brief
By Tania Hernandez
Introduction
One of the most controversial aspects
of our food system is the role that should
be played by modern agricultural
biotechnology in the form of genetically
engineered (GE) crop varieties. With
global population projections estimated
to reach 9.1 billion by the year 2050,
proponents of the technology claim that
genetic engineering will ensure that our
crops are productive and resilient
enough to feed a world demand which
will require a 70% increase from current
food production levels.1
1
High Level Expert Forum-How to Feed the World in
2050. (2009). Global Agriculture Towards 2050. Rome.
Available from
http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/wsfs/docs/Iss
ues_papers/HLEF2050_Global_Agriculture.pdf
(Accessed 19 January 2015).
However, critics warn against the reliance
on a singular technological fix like GE crops
to solve the world’s food problems. They
argue that modern biotechnology alone
cannot address the root causes of global
hunger because it is not fundamentally a
Executive Summary
One of the most controversial aspects of our food
system is the role that should be played by modern
agricultural biotechnology in the form of genetically
engineered (GE) crop varieties. However, critics warn
against the reliance on a singular technological fix like
GE crops to solve the world’s food problems. This
means that the solutions lie in the arena of policy
making and in our own ability to change our behaviours.
Therefore, GE crops are hardly sufficient to address the
hunger problem which requires locally adapted
solutions, democratic decision-making and in many
cases, the restructuring of food systems.
University for Peace
Department of Environment &
Development
Re-thinking the Use of
Biotechnology in Our Food
System Issue 2015/01 ∙ January 2015

2. University for Peace Policy brief ∙ n° 2015/01
technological problem.2 This will be the
focus of this brief which aims to critically
analyze the use of biotechnology,
specifically GE crops, in our food system to
determine whether we should rethink the
path we have started to walk before it is too
late to turn back.
This brief proceeds in five sections. First,
we outline the merits of GE crop
production. Second, we review the fallacy
implicated in focusing on food production
considering the current discourse of global
hunger. Then we examine the issue of food
waste followed by a broader look at the
problems facing our food system. We then
conclude by proposing ways to move
forward.
Genetically Engineered (GE) Crops
Advocates of genetic engineering argue
that widespread adoption of the technology
will have a significant impact on combating
food insecurity in regions in the Global
South such as Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
where populations are expected to increase
the fastest (+114 percent) and where
farmers will be hit hardest as a result of
changing climatic conditions.3 Drought-
resistant varieties that can withstand drier
conditions and pesticide- and herbicide-
resistant varieties that assuage pest and
weed pressures, respectfully, are said to
lead to improved yields and thus increased
profits for farmers. This can help alleviate
2
Pesticide Action Network North America. (2010).
Biotechnology and Sustainable Development. San
Francisco, CA.
3
Data from the FAO’S Food Security Indicators,
Economic and Social Development department, 24
January 2013 release, available from
http://www.fao.org/economic/ess/ess-fs/ess-
fadata/en/ (Accessed 19 January 2015).
hunger not only by creating a greater
availability of food but an increased food
supply will also lead to decreases in prices.
This will facilitate increased access to food
to food insecure populations.4
Supply is Not the Problem
To claim that global food production will
need to increase presupposes the idea that
there is or will be a shortage of food supply.
This is empirically unfounded and
inherently problematic considering that the
global supply of dietary energy reached 122
percent of the global requirement in 2012-
2014, demonstrating a steady rise from 115
percent only 20 years earlier.5 Over the
same span of time, the global population
mushroomed from around 5.7 billion to an
approximate 7.1 billion, debunking the
notion that global food supply is negatively
correlated to population growth.6 Even in
the midst of concerns surrounding
population growth, current projections
suggest that average daily energy
availability could reach 3050 kcal per
person by 2050 (slightly lower at 2970 kcal
in the Global South), a marked increase
from 2770 kcal in 2003-2005, meanwhile
most people only need around 2,100 kcal
per day.7 In fact, we are producing so much
food that we cannot even eat it all: at the
end of the 2014 growing season, 2.5 million
4
Zilberman, D., Kaplan, S., Kim, E., Sexton, S., &
Barrows, G. (2014). Biotechnology and Food Security.
Journal of International Affairs, 67(2).
5
FAO Food Security Indicators, 2013.
6
FAO Food Security Indicators, 2013.
7
High Level Expert Forum, 2009.

3. University for Peace Policy brief ∙ n° 2015/01
tonnes of grain staples were harvested yet
only 2.4 million tonnes were consumed.8
Waste amidst Food Insecurity
Evidently, the problem of hunger goes
beyond the discourse of production in its
complexity and thus requires a deeper
analysis of local and regional contexts. For
example, in the US alone, 40% of total post-
harvest food goes to waste.9 That is the
equivalent of more than 20 pounds of food
being thrown out per person every month -
a value of $165US billion a year.10 The
paradox lies in the fact that one in six
Americans is food insecure. In fact, the
number of Americans that are food insecure
– that is, any household where at some
point during the previous year lacked
sufficient food to eat - has grown
substantially reaching 48 million in 2012
which is a fivefold increase since the late
1960s.11 If we add to this the fact that more
than one-third of adults (34.9% or 78.6
million) in the US are obese, we can be
certain that the dynamics of the ‘stuffed and
starved’ go beyond a supply and demand
dilemma.12 What is even more striking
8
Food and Agriculture Organization. World Food
Insecurity and Malnutrition: Scope, Trends, Causes and
Consequences. Retrieved from
http://ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/ai799e/ai799e
02.pdf (Accessed 19 January 2015).
9
National Resources Defense Council (2012). Wasted:
How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food
from Farm to Fork to Landfill. Retrieved 25 November
2014, from http://www.nrdc.org/food/wastedfood.asp
10
NRDC, 2012.
11
NRDC, 2012; McMillan, T. (2014). The New Face of
Hunger. National Geographic. Available from
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/hun
ger/ (Accessed 19 January 2015).
12
Ogden, C., Carroll, M., Kit, B., & Flegal, K. (2014).
Prevalence of Childhood and Adult Obesity in the
United States, 2011–2012. Journal of the American
Medicine Association, 311(8): 806-14.
about the situation in the US – which is by
far the strongest promoter and user of GE
crops by hectare – is that GE crops were
first planted in 1996 and have been on a
steady rise ever since and now cover a total
of 70 million hectares as of 2013.13 If the
introduction of GE crops has failed to solve
the food crisis of America, how can it be
expected to solve that of the world?
A Broken System
The answer is it can’t. Clearly, the
simplistic notion of the need for more food
does not square with current realities and
does not address underlying problems of
inefficiencies in the food system and
inequalities in access and distribution
which varies across time and space. The
2009 UN-led IAASTD report also supports
this argument:
“The problem of global hunger and
poverty is not fundamentally a
technological problem. Existing
rules and policies and dominant
institutional arrangements have
shaped today’s food system, and
are largely responsible for the
extreme inequalities in access to
food and resources seen today.”14
Poverty, hunger and malnourishment are
not technical issues; they are complex social
13
GMO Compass (2014). GMO Crop Growing: Growing
Around the World.
http://www.gmocompass.org/eng/agri_biotechnology/
gmo_planting/ (Accessed 25 November 2014).
14
International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge,
Science and Technology for
Development. 2009. Agriculture at a Crossroads:
Synthesis Report. Island Press, Washington, DC.

4. University for Peace Policy brief ∙ n° 2015/01
and political issues. This means that the
solutions lie in the arena of policy
making and in our own ability to change
our behaviours.15 This means we should
be wary of any one solution that is
advertised as being the golden ticket out of
all our food problems. Food insecurity does
not exist because GE crops have not been
widely adopted so it cannot be expected
that GE crops – and any form of modern
biotechnology for that matter – can tackle
the deeper structural issues of our food
system including legislation and trade and
food policies.16 The importance of good,
democratic and action-oriented policy
should not be underestimated: with the
implementation of the Zero Hunger
programme, Brazil was able to decrease
overall poverty from 24.3% to 8.4%
between 2001-2012; decrease the number
of undernourished people from 10.7% of
the population in 2000-2002 to less than
5% in 2004-2006 while also decreasing
severe food insecurity by 25% between
2004-2009.17
Conclusion and Suggestions for
Moving Forward
The often cited single grandiose question
of how ‘to feed the nine billion’ presents
15
Heinemann, Jack. 2009. Hope Not Hype: The Future
of Agriculture Guided by the International Assessment
of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for
Development. Third World Network, Penang, Malaysia.,
p. 1-2.
16
Morse, S., & Mannion, A. (2009). Can Genetically
Modified Cotton Contribute to Sustainable
Development in Africa? Progress In Development
Studies, 9(3), 225-247.
17
Food and Agriculture Organization. (2014). The State
of Food Security in the World 2014, In
Brief. Available from http://www.fao.org/3/a-
i4037e.pdf (Accessed 19 January 2015).
global food security discourse as a one
primarily concerned with production yet as
we have seen, the issues challenging our
current food system go much deeper than
that. In fact, we produce so much food on
this planet that we can afford to throw a
large portion of it away. Moreover, hunger
and malnourishment are very localized
issues affecting nations, regions, rural and
urban populations, socio-economic classes,
genders and age groups differently.18 In
this regard, a single technological fix such as
GE crops is hardly sufficient to address the
hunger problem which requires locally
adapted solutions, democratic decision-
making and in many cases, the
restructuring of food systems.19 Before
jumping on the technology band-wagon, the
IAASTD has emphasized the following in
order to assess the relevance of a possible
technical solution to a problem within our
food system:20
 Engaging all stakeholders in open,
democratic debate about emerging
technologies
 Conducting a cost-benefit analysis of
a new technology to better
understand the risks at stake
including the long-term impact on
public health, the environment and
on society
18
Dowd-Uribe, B., Glover, D., & Schnurr, M. (2014).
Seeds and places: The Geographies of Transgenic Crops
in the Global South. Geoforum, 53, 145-148.
19
Dowd-Uribe, B., et al., 2014.
20
IAASTD, 2009.

5. University for Peace Policy brief ∙ n° 2015/01
References
Data from the FAO’S Food Security
Indicators, Economic and Social
Development department,
24 January 2013 release, available from
http://www.fao.org/economic/ess/ess-
fs/ess-fadata/en/ (Accessed 19 January
2015).
Dowd-Uribe, B., Glover, D., & Schnurr, M.
(2014). Seeds and places: The
Geographies of Transgenic Crops in the
Global South. Geoforum, 53, 145-148.
Food and Agriculture Organization (2014).
The State of Food Security in the World
2014, In Brief. Available from
http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4037e.pdf
(Accessed 19 January 2015).
Food and Agriculture Organization. World
Food Insecurity and Malnutrition: Scope,
Trends, Causes and Consequences.
Retrieved from http://ftp://ftp.fao.org/
docrep/fao/010/ai799e/ai799e02.pdf
(Accessed 19 January 2015).
GMO Compass (2014). GMO Crop Growing:
Growing Around the World. Retrieved
from http://www.gmocompass.org/eng/
agri_biotechnology/gmo_planting/
(Accessed 25 November 2014).
Heinemann, Jack (2009). Hope Not Hype:
The Future of Agriculture Guided by the
International Assessment of Agricultural
Knowledge, Science and Technology for
Development. Third World Network,
Penang, Malaysia., p. 1-2.
International Assessment of Agricultural
Knowledge, Science and Technology for
Development (2009). Agriculture at a
Crossroads: Synthesis Report. Island
Press, Washington, DC.
Morse, S., & Mannion, A. (2009). Can
Genetically Modified Cotton Contribute
to Sustainable Development in Africa?
Progress In Development Studies, 9(3),
225-247.
McMillan, T. (2014). The New Face of
Hunger. National Geographic. Available
from http://www.nationalgeographic.
com/foodfeatures/hunger/ (Accessed 19
January 2015).
National Resources Defense Council (2012).
Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40
Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to
Landfill. Retrieved 25 November 2014,
from http://www.nrdc.org/food/
wastedfood.asp
Ogden, C., Carroll, M., Kit, B., & Flegal, K.
(2014). Prevalence of Childhood and
Adult Obesity in the United States, 2011–
2012. Journal of the American Medicine
Association, 311(8): 806-14.
Pesticide Action Network North America.
(2010). Biotechnology and Sustainable
Development. San Francisco, CA.
Zilberman, D., Kaplan, S., Kim, E., Sexton, S.,
& Barrows, G. (2014). Biotechnology and
Food Security. Journal of International
Affairs, 67(2).