If GMOs exist why do we have world hunger?
In: Engineering
People are talking like the main problem here is logistics. That’s true in certain cases, particularly conflict zones. It tends to be true in times of famine or acute food shortage. But mostly the problem is the failure of subsistence farming and lack of money to buy food. Lots of the world’s hungry people don’t live in remote inaccessible places, they live in cities. Sometimes even cities in rich countries.
Some people produce their own food (or food for small communities). These people are often hit by problems like soil erosion, climate change, population growth, and so-on.
Most people, including farmers producing “cash crops”, have to buy the bulk of their food. This costs money. *Poverty* is the main cause of hunger.
Why haven’t GM crops fixed this? Well partly because the improvements they offer have been modest so far. There are a lot of different challenges to growing food more efficiently and reliably. Also because their adoption has been slowed by lots of factors, concerns about safety, sustainability and control of food supplies, some justified, some unjustified. (The way GMOs were originally pushed was basically a disaster for their public image.)
Then there *is* the impact of the cost of distribution. GM tech doesn’t reduce the cost of running a ship or a lorry, a shop or a market stall, running safety checks, or all the other assorted costs that go into the final price of food.
So GMOs haven’t led to a big reduction in the cost of food and made it more affordable for the world’s poor.
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