Adequate food supplies for a burgeoning population under conditions of ever shrinking arable land.
GM agriculture can help provide adequate food, not only for the hundreds of millions of people already malnourished but also for the billions of additional people to come. How to do this without excessive invasion of current non-agricultural land and at the same time minimising the use of agricultural chemicals and of energy is the major challenge facing us in agriculture.

Biotechnology in general and genetic engineering in particular will be major contributory factors to solving these problems but they cannot do so by themselves. There will also have to be extensive improvements in social and political organisation, the building of much better infrastructures and, of course, an end to war.

Source:

Human Development Report 2001. United Nations Development Programme
(http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2001/en/)

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