Ten Reasons Why Biotechnology Will Be Important to the Developing World

Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), and numerous academics (e.g., Ruttan 1999) have continued to argue for the need to increase agricultural productivity so that sufficient food supplies exist to meet the demand forthcoming from a swelling world population. Despite Altieri and Rosset's (this issue) assertion, population density is hardly the issue. In the absence of significant productivity gains, or expansion of agriculture into marginal lands (e.g., forests), there will be not be sufficient food quantities to feed the projected levels of population. This simple reality is independent of income distribution or the location of the population. And hardly anyone, including Altieri and Rosset, will argue about the pragmatism of population projections. So in the absence of a good alternative – and in the face of a proven slow down in the productivity gains from the Green Revolution – biotechnology is by default our best, and maybe, only, way to increase production to meet future food needs.