How we feed 9 billion people

David ZilbermanELP 2011

Outline

• Big challenges ahead• How agricultural biotechnology mitigates

climate change• Offsetting effects• Policy

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Big Challenges: Rising Food Demand

• World pop will grow 30% by 2050

• Rising incomes cause per capita demand to grow too

• And diets are becoming more land intensive

• Food production must grow faster than population

Per Capita Meet Consumption (in kg) in Asia (1962-2002)

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Big Challenges: Falling yield growth

• The Green Revolution allowed production to double as world pop doubled to 6 bn from 1940-1990

• But productivity growth is slowing and stalling in staple crops w/o biotech

U.S. Staple field crop yields (MT/Ha) 1990-2002

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Big Challenges: Energy Demand Rising

• 6% of China pop owned car in 2007. 80% in UK and 90% in US.

• Demand in non-OECD economies will grow 104% from 2006-30

World Marketed Energy Consumption (Qbtu) 1980-2030

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Big Challenges: Oil is harder to get

• New supplies are harder to reach (e.g. deep sea oil wells)

• And dirtier (e.g. deep sea oil wells, tarsands, CTLs, etc.)

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Big Challenges: Climate Change

• We need both adaptation and mitigation– Temperatures are likely to rise by 1 – 2C

regardless of what we do– Adaptation means • Changing crop systems• Starting farming in new areas

• Agriculture must do more (food and biofuel) with less (emissions and land)

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A diversified strategy

• Investment in research and outreach• Use of integrated ecological practices– Adapting farming to ecological and climatic conditions– Taking advantage of diverse sources of knowledge

• Taking advantage of new science and technology– Information technology– Molecular and cell technology

• Agricultural biotechnology and GMOs

• GMO is maligned but I will argue that it is an essential part of (sustainable) agriculture of the future

What is Ag-Biotechnology?• Ag-Biotech applied modern tools of molecular and cell

biology to agriculture.• The discovery of DNA is arguably the greatest discovery of

the 20th century. – Comparable to the discovery of the atom & electricity – Enables understanding of the inner working of organisms– Provides tools to minor manipulations that have major impacts

• Medical biotech radicalized medicines and develop tools to deal with cancer, AIDS, etc.

• Agricultural biotechnology can do the same to crop systems- Help to increase and improve food production, produce renewable fuels

and other materials - It is in its infancy but already has a successful track record and a

promising future.

Science and Miracle of Agriculture

• Population doubled since 1950• Food per capita increased• Food per worker increased• There are side effects that need to be

addressed but • science is the best tool we have

One reason: yields increased

What is the global impact of GE ?• Adopted on 4 major

crops(cotton, maize, rapeseed, soybean)

• Mostly in US, Latin America• Cotton in China, India and

Africa• Adoption grew fast

– About 70% of soybean land– About 50% of cotton– About 30% of maize– About 20% of rapeseed

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First generation GM varieties controlling pest damage

• Insect resistance & herbicide tolerance• Actual output = potential output X (1-damage)– GM varieties reduce damage when there is no

pesticide– replace pesticide to control damage

• In developing countries, likely to have high yield effect

• In developed countries, pesticide replacing effect

Estimated yield effect of GE seed varies by trait, region (from Qaim ‘09)

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GM made huge differences: Maize yield

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Visual Diff-in-Diff: maize yield

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Visual Diff-in-Diff: Yield percent deviation from mean (Argentina)

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Corn Yields US per acre

Crop breeding, as well as genetic tools and techniques, are crucial for the increase in yield

Overall assessment of GMO contribution

• Yield of GMO crops cotton & corn grew much faster than other crops

• Impact highest in developing countries– Yield effect in cotton close to 100% maize 50%

Implications for Land use

• Gene revolution allows us to meet growing food demand without relying on farmland expansion alone

• Without GE yield gains in ‘08, would have needed:– 8.6 million HA more land to produce maize crop– 11 million HA more land for soybean crop– An area of additional land equal to state of Kansas or

total area planted to wheat in U.S. in 2008.

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Simulating the crisis without GE seeds

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Implications for food security

• By increasing supply, GM reduced the price of corn by between 15-30% & soybean between 20-40%

• Without biotech, the food crisis would have been worse

• Food price reduction because biotech is equivalent to food price increase because of biofuel

World Food Price Index in 2000 dollars (World Bank)

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If there were broader adoption of GE

• If top-10 producing countries had all adopted GE at the rate of the US . . .– maize production would have been 75 million tons

higher just from yield gains• Biofuels recruited 86 million tons

– Vegetable oils production would have been 37 million tons higher• Biofuels recruited 8.6 million tons

– food prices would have been lower– We could have food AND fuel

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If there were broader adoption of GE

• And if GE wheat were introduced in top-10 countries and yield gains mirrored those in soybean . . .– Production would have been 12 million tons

higher• Biofuels recruited 26 million tons

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Expansion of soybean acreage met China’s growing demand

GM allowed double cropping of soybeans with wheat

• It has created virtual land expansion of 10M acres in Argentina.

• Argentina has met fast-growing Chinese demand for soybean

Soybean production in Argentina and imports in China

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Other benefits of GM• US NRC report suggests GM more environmental

friendly than traditional agriculture• By reducing pesticide use, it saves thousands of

lives in China • It makes farmers lives easier (which is a plus) • Reducing acreage saved the equivalent GHG

emission of a 6.4 million cars annually• Reducing soil erosion and water run off by

encouraging no tillage• It saves fuel and water by increasing yield

Relative to Modern Breeding Biotech Can Enhance Crop Biodiversity

• Main premise: Agbiotech allows minor modification of existing varieties and under appropriate institutional setup can be adopted while preserving crop biodiversity

• Conventional breeding involves often massive genetic changes, and adjustments to accommodate biodiversity are costly and

• Well functioning IPR system can lead to crop biodiversity preservation

• Field data support this claim

Gene Flow• No or very limited spatial overlap between GE

crops and potentially interbreeding relatives in the United States

• Future concerns depend on what GE crops emerge in market

• Primarily a concern to producers of non-GE varieties of these crops

Environmental EffectsNRC Report Findings :

GM essential for dealing with Climate Change

• Climate change is serious. We need to fight fire with fire.

• GM would allow much faster development of crop systems

• Sustainability does not mean keeping the status quo because evolution means change

• Thus sustainability means the ability to adapt and adjust to change with minimum damage

• Biotech enables such adjustments

Dependence on business (monopolies?)• We are dependent on business firms for provision of

cellphones, medicine and almost everything else. • Producers price goods so that they are affordable• 60%+ of the economics of GM went to consumers

and farmers• Governments should and will stay involved in GM to

complement businesses• Many patents belong to universities & are available

for developing crops for the poor• Even companies contribute IPR for crops for the

poor

Big challenge: Regulation• Banning GM and regulatory uncertainty reduced

investment in developing new technologies• Heavy regulation increased the power of

monopolies, they are only ones who can afford it• Technologies to improve food quality, reduce GHG

emission and address drought and diseases are languishing on the shelf

• Europe’s yield are declining relative to the Americas • Africa is more vulnerable because of taking limited

advantage of opportunities- – Africa missed the Green Revolution – will it miss the

Gene Revolution?

Conclusions

• GM technology has certain gain and some uncertain risks

• But we should accept small risks in order to mitigate big ones

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