Food security, genetically modified crops and environment

At the dawn of agriculture, the population of the world was approximately 5 million. In beginning of the 19th century, when global population was less than 1 billion, it was easy to increase food production through expansion in area under cultivation. In beginning of 20th century, when world population was 1.6 billion, an increase in global food production was brought mainly through increased productivity per unit area. Green revolution came into play during 1960's and 1970's when the world went through a period of low productivity. The world produced enough food at beginning of 21st century when the world population was 6.1 billion but in the process caused damage to environment. Hunger and malnutrition is affecting over one billion people and world grain production is struggling due to problems of sustainability of input based agriculture, land and water shortages, erosion of biodiversity and climate change. The world population is now projected to grow to 8.2 billion by 2030 and 9.2 billion by 2050. Therefore, doubling production task by 2050 through traditional practices looks daunting itself in situations like frequent droughts, floods, cloud bursts, abrupt changes in temperature extremes and push to produce bio fuels. Therefore issue of food security need to be addressed through innovations in crop improvement effort and production technologies. The potential benefits of GM crops include increased tolerance to biotic and biotic stress, herbicides, and enhanced nutritional value while risks include allergies, gene flow, development of resistance to insects and unknown changes. But the global food security goal can best be achieved through judicial blending of traditional technologies with biotechnologies and making them available at affordable costs while winning public confidence.