Hunger is at an all-time low. We can drive it even lower.
9 Sep, 2015
A few observations on hunger, extracted from the latest FAO report on The State of Food Insecurity, 2015 1. The percent of humanity that’s hungry is at an all-time low. According to FAO, 11.3% of the world is undernourished. Most of that hunger is concentrated in…
R e a d M o r eThe Patents Argument Against GMOs Just Ended With the First Off-Patent GMO
12 Dec, 2014
I argued in my 2013 book, The Infinite Resource, that the “seeds shouldn’t be patented” argument against GMOs and specifically against Monsanto was invalid for a very specific reason: Patents end. As I wrote then, the patents for Monsanto’s first commercial genetically modified crop, Roundup Ready…
R e a d M o r eWhat’s Limiting the Impact of GMOs on Global Food Security?
26 Feb, 2014
My friend Jon Foley, who I have a great deal of respect for, has a piece up arguing that GMOs have failed to improve global food security because they fall into a trap of reductionist thinking. With due respect to Jon, I see this a…
R e a d M o r eCan We Feed the World?
14 Nov, 2013
By 2050, the FAO projects that we’ll need to increase global food production by 70% to meet rising food demand. Most of that, as Jon Foley has noted, is not from population growth, but rather from increasingly meat rich diets in the developing world. Perhaps…
R e a d M o r eThe Evidence on GMO Safety
28 Apr, 2013
This page started as a followup to an appearance I made on NBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry show in April of 2013, speaking about GMOs. You can see the video at the show’s website or embedded below. See also: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Or if…
R e a d M o r eChina now consumes twice as much meat as the United States
24 Apr, 2012
Janet Larsen at the Earth Policy Institute has an extremely informative post on meat consumption in China. Total meat consumption there has risen by a whopping 600% since 1980 and is now double the amount consumed in the US. Yet on a per-capita basis, Chinese…
R e a d M o r eOrganic Crops have Lower Yields than Conventional Crops
14 Mar, 2011
Plant pathologist Steve Savage has analyzed the data from the USDA’s Organic Production Survey (the largest ever survey of organic farming in the United States) and finds that organic yields per acre are substantially lower than the yields of conventional crops. By far the biggest…
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