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WS_1452 01180.txt

How technology gave us cheap food in huge quantities and why it has to stopin the fairly near future, Earth will have nine billion mouths to feed. To solve this dilemma, Rob Aukerman, president of U s. operations at Elanco Animal health, has been a vocal advocate of oeproven technologies to assist farmers in delivering more food using fewer resources. Citing Elanco acquisition of Chemgen a private food specialization company Aukerman promoted food enzymes earlier this year as oenatural digestives. His concerns regarding food delivery are shared well. A 2010 symposium hosted by the Global Harvest Initiative in Washington DC, promoted a need for continuous innovation to meet global food demand, with Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund arguing that in order to do so, oethe footprint of food must be frozen. oeholding crop area fixed and assuming only historical yield growth, food production will fall far short of the needs by 2050, Clay colleague, IHS global insight managing director of agricultural services John Kruse, agreed. oemeeting those needs with the same land area would require global crop yields to increase nearly 25%faster than historically. As the global community faces a food crisis biotechnology genetic manipulation of food DNA to meet consumer desire has frequently been cited as the cause, as well as the solution, of the problem. Timothy Wise recently cited biofuel production as a oedemand shock that consumes crop production and yields price increases. The Guardian Larry Elliott argues that as demand for protein-heavy diets in developing nations increases, supply constraints mean that a 50%increase in food demand will exist by 2030. And Nestle Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe also cited rising production of biofuel and the high subsidies it receives as the direct cause of rising food prices. oethe only difference is that with the food market you need 2, 500 calories per person per day, whereas in the energy market you need 50,000 calories per person, Brabeck-Letmathe told BBC News in July. oeit takes about 4, 600 litres of water to produce one litre of pure ethanol if it comes from sugar, and it takes 1, 900 litres of water if it comes from palm oil. Advances in bioechnology have helped us push food production to its limit. But with the exit of cheap food a strong reality, it is worth assessing how technology has allowed it to be produced in mass amounts what the potential consequences of genetically modified organisms (GMOS) are, and what the global public role is in their use or disuse. The move towards biotechnology Prior to 8, 000 BC, nomadic hunter gathering was the norm. Populations thrived on the harvesting and processing techniques that allowed agricultural production to keep pace with human population growth. This growth extended agricultural practice to more vast, diverse lands, and by 1, 000 BC, many of the practices that define agriculture today, such as using manure for fertilizer, were already in use. The 19th century paved the way for technology developments; 1800 saw the first simple threshing machine, hoes, and seed drill come into use, with steam power replacing horse power in the 1890s. John Deere introduction of the steel plow in the 1830s gave way to tractor use in 1905, leading the way for production of nitrogen fertilizers in 1920 and pesticide use in the 1940s. The world population reached one billion in 1825, and the population of industrialized nations grew from 500 to 800 million between 1850 and 1900. As agricultural science gained prominence, consumption of animal proteins, cereal and calories per capita also skyrocketed. The world population of three billion that had arrived by 1960 gave way to the industrialized agriculture that defines food production today. Chemical inputs mechanized farming methods, and the start of the animal agriculture business all saw dramatic increase in yields, and the use of technology to produce GMOS was born. GMOS: What they are and why they re used According to THE WHO, GMOS oecan be defined as organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally it allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another, also between non-related species. Simply put, genetic modification involves manipulating the genetic makeup of food to create or enhance characteristics that are desired by humans. As scientific advancements throughout the 1980s discovered that DNA could be transferred in pieces from one organism to another, genetically modified products including cotton and tobacco plants were produced. The success of the first tested genetically engineered cotton in 1990 led biotech company Monsanto to introduce herbicide-immune soybeans aka, oeround-Up Ready in 1995, and the 2000 discovery that modification can enrich foods using nutrients and vitamins has made biotechnology a global giant in the world of food production

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