Everyone knows someone who has a strong opinion of genetically modified foods. Every time you go to the supermarket or hear of the future of farming, it’s impossible to avoid claims of both the harm and benefits of genetically modified foods. And yet the countries attempting to keep genetically engineered foods out of their countries are finding it increasingly difficult to do so. Will we one day be looking at a world where pure genetically unaltered foods are unavailable to the general population?
Japan and Egypt have taken center stage in the world after a series of life changing events took both nations by storm. But now Ireland, wishing to join them voluntarily in one of their policy decisions faces a substantial fight ahead of them. The decision all three said could help health within their countries in a major way in the coming decades may actually be made by someone else. Ireland in 2009 was leaning in the direction of banning GMO foods in their country, only to learn by 2011 these foods would be making their way into the country through animal feed.
And genetically modified food of the future could be quite different from what it is today. Currently one of the main things keeping crops from becoming bigger and more versatile is an overriding fear that GMO crops could spell trouble for human and animal health and even cause a major ecological disaster at some point in the future if it mutates. But that’s not all there is to the equation. It appears the push toward creating cheaper and more easily grown food is higher than ever as the global population is expected to increase to seven billion in 2011. How will the GMO debate shift by the time this population increases to 10 or 11 billion? The debate may not only become more important, the lines drawn in the sand may become increasingly blurred.
One fact of the issue is we have vast areas of land in desert areas that are not designed to support large populations. The Sahara desert is an area of land that covers over three and a half million square miles. If GMO crops were able to turn this land into lush farmland, it would become a far more interesting debate when the population started reaching the levels the United Nations expects for the year 2050. By 2050 the UN expects the population to increase as much as four billion over 2011 to a total estimated population of eleven billion people. Of course smaller projections suggest it will actually be far lower than that – possibly even reaching only slightly past current levels and ultimately declining gradually over time.
Will GMO foods be a relevant issue in the coming decade? Perhaps up to twice as much as it is today. Will Ireland be able to remain free of GMO foods in the future? That’s something we may not be able to predict.