̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - genetic modification (GM)

Opinion: GM crop ruling shows why the EU’s laws are wholly inadequate

fpjl2 — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 08:05:08 +0000

̽��ֱ��European Court of Justice has made an important ruling on genetically modified crops. Since 2003, new crop varieties produced by genetic modification have had to be assessed for their risks to the environment and human and animal health before they can be farmed in the European Union.

̽��ֱ��court has now decided that genetic modification includes any technique that induces genetic changes “in a way that does not occur naturally”. This includes new genome editing techniques such as CRISPR/Cas9, but also approaches that have been used in plant breeding since the 1960s.

Some scientists have criticised the court for “shutting the door” on new technologies that could benefit human health and the environment. This is certainly a concern. ̽��ֱ��ruling will discourage the use of genome editing that could bring significant environmental benefits by making it more expensive for such such crops to clear the necessary regulatory processes.

But the main problem illustrated by this ruling is the deep logical flaw in the whole regulatory approach. Plants that have been bred in more traditional ways, which could have just as serious health or environmental impacts, will continue to be exempt from regulation. Focusing on how a new crop is produced – rather than the new characteristics or agricultural practices it brings – will inevitably result in wholly inadequate protection for the environment and consumers.

Every new crop variety is genetically different from its predecessors. A lot of genetic variation can arise naturally from errors in DNA copying, mutations caused by environmental factors, cross breeding with wild relatives, viruses and many other sources. All this variation is excluded from the EU definition of GM.

To increase genetic diversity and generally speed things up, scientists can induce mutations deliberately. Random mutagenesis – purposefully encouraging genetic mutations, for example with radiation – has been used on crops since the 1960s. It has since become possible to add specific new genes, sourced from the same or different species. And, even more recently, genome editing techniques have been developed that allow scientists to alter selected existing genes. These more recent approaches are becoming ever more useful as we build up our understanding of which genes do what.

All these techniques can be used to introduce new traits into a crop variety, for example to make a plant resistant to herbicides. ̽��ֱ��new court ruling came about because a group of farming organisations who were worried about the impact of herbicide resistant crops argued they should be regulated regardless of how they were developed.

This seems to me entirely reasonable. There are of plenty of arguments and counterarguments about the risks and benefits of this approach to weed control – and it is important to assess these before introducing a new herbicide resistant crop. None of these arguments have anything to do with how the crop was produced.

Yet the court ruling means that herbicide resistant crops produced through conventional breeding can be used freely, while crops produced using newer approaches must be subjected to intense scrutiny. So the farming groups might be happy that a new generation of herbicide resistant crops will have to be extensively assessed for their environmental and health impacts. But herbicide resistant crops produced by traditional methods, which raise identical concerns, will remain exempt from these regulations.

Natural’s not in it

This highlights the central problem with the EU regulations on new crop varieties. Anything that could occur naturally is exempt from scrutiny. Yet drawing a line between the natural and artificial is difficult to say the least. After thousands of years of careful human intervention, most “natural” crops look nothing like their wild ancestor. They have many characteristics that mean they would not last more than a few generations if they had to compete in the wild.

One of the reasons we have spent so long breeding them is that many natural plants carry serious risks. Very few people would say to their children: “Go into the woods and eat anything you can find. It’s all natural so it must be good for you.” ̽��ֱ��distinction between natural and artificial is both contrived and not relevant when it comes to environmental and health impact assessment.

We should assess new crop varieties on the traits they are supposed to deliver, not on how those traits were introduced. ̽��ֱ��system needs to be proportional and risk-based. This should of course include consideration of the unintended effects of whatever genetic improvement process was used. Instead we spend years debating whether or not a new technique counts as genetic modification or not. That this is even a relevant question lays bare the flaws in our current approach.

This article has been republished from ̽��ֱ��Conversation.

A new EU ruling that attempts to draw a line between natural and artificial when it comes to crop production has a "deep logical flaw" at its heart, writes Professor Ottoline Leyser, Director of the ̽��ֱ��'s Sainsbury Laboratory.

We should assess new crop varieties on the traits they are supposed to deliver, not on how those traits were introduced

Ottoline Leyser

Fernan Federici

Ratiometric measurement of gene expression

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Opinion: GM crops already feed much of the world today – why not tomorrow’s generations too?

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2016 13:19:58 +0000

My parents researched malnutrition and under-nutrition in India, especially among children, and found that many diets recommended by Western nutritionists were in fact completely inapplicable to the poor. So they formulated cheap, healthy diets based on indigenous food with which people were familiar. Yet despite their many other efforts, a quarter of people in Indian and nearly one in nine people around the world do not have enough food to live a healthy active life.

̽��ֱ��World Bank estimates that we will need to produce about 50% more food by 2050 to feed a population of nine billion people. And the past 50 years have seen agricultural productivity soar – corn yields in the US have doubled, for example. But this has come with sharp increases in the use of fertilisers, pesticides and water which has brought its own problems. There is also no guarantee that this rate of increase in yields can be maintained.

Just as new agricultural techniques and equipment spurred on food production in the Middle Ages, and scientific crop breeding, fertilisers and pesticides did so for the Green Revolution of the 20th century, so we must rely on the latest technology to boost food production further. Genetic modification, or GM, used appropriately with proper regulation, may be part of the solution. Yet GM remains a highly contentious topic of debate where, unfortunately, the underlying facts are often obscured.

Views on GM differ across the world. Almost half of all crops grown in the US are GM, whereas widespread opposition in Europe means virtually no GM crops are grown there. In Canada, regulation is focused on the characteristics of the crop produced, while in the EU the focus is on how it has been modified. GM crops do not damage the environment by nature of their modification; GM is merely a technology, and it is the resulting product that we should be concerned about and regulate, just as we would any new product.

There are outstanding plant scientists who work on GM in the UK, but the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments have declared their opposition to GM plants. Why is there such strong opposition in a country with great trust in scientists?

About 15 years ago when GM was just emerging, its main proponents and many of the initial products were from large multinational corporations – even though it was publicly funded scientists who produced much of the initial research. Understandably, many felt GM was a means for these corporations to impose a monopoly on crops and maximise their profits. This perception was not helped by some of the practices of these big companies, such as introducing herbicide resistant crops that led to the heavy use of herbicides – often made by the same companies.

̽��ֱ��debate became polarised, and any sense that the evidence could be rationally assessed evaporated. There have been claims made about the negative health effects and economic costs of GM crops – claims later shown to be unsubstantiated. Today, half of those in the UK do not feel well informed about GM crops.

Everyday genetic modification

GM involves the introduction of very specific genes into plants. In many ways this is much more controlled than the random mutations that are selected for in traditional plant breeding. Most of the commonly grown crops that we consider natural actually bear little resemblance to their wild ancestors, having been selectively modified through cross-breeding over the thousands of years that humans have been farming crops – in a sense, this is a form of genetic modification itself.

In any case, we accept genetic modification in many other contexts: insulin used to treat diabetes is now made by GM microbes and has almost completely replaced animal insulin, for example. Many of the top selling drugs are proteins such as antibodies made entirely by GM, and now account for a third of all new medicines (and over half of the biggest selling ones). These are used to treat a host of diseases, from breast cancer to arthritis and leukaemia.

Millions of acres growing GM crops worldwide. Fafner/ISSSA, CC BY-SA

GM has been used to create insect-resistance in plants that greatly reduces or even eliminates the need for chemical insecticides, reducing the cost to the farmer and the environment. It also has the potential to make crops more nutritious, for example by adding healthier fats or more nutritious proteins. It’s been used to introduce nutrients such as beta carotene from which the body can make vitamin A – the so-called golden rice – which prevents night blindness in children. And GM can potentially create crops that are drought resistant – something that as water becomes scarce will become increasingly important.

More than 10% of the world’s arable land is now used to grow GM plants. An extensive study conducted by the US National Academies of Sciences recently reported that there has been no evidence of ill effects linked to the consumption of any approved GM crop since the widespread commercialisation of GM products 18 years ago. It also reported that there was no conclusive evidence of environmental problems resulting from GM crops.

GM is a tool, and how we use it is up to us. It certainly does not have to be the monopoly of a few multinational corporations. We can and should have adequate regulations to ensure the safety of any new crop strain (GM or otherwise) to both ourselves and the environment, and it is up to us to decide what traits in any new plant are acceptable. People may be opposed to GM crops for a variety of reasons and ultimately consumers will decide what they want to eat. But the one in nine people in poor countries facing malnutrition or starvation do not enjoy that choice. ̽��ֱ��availability of cheap, healthy and nutritious food for them is a matter of life and death.

Alongside other improvements in farming practices, genetic modification is an important part of a sustainable solution to global food shortages. However, the motto of the Royal Society is nullius in verba; roughly, “take nobody’s word for it”. We need a well-informed debate based on an assessment of the evidence. ̽��ֱ��Royal Society has published GM Plants: questions and answers which can play its part in this. People should look at the evidence – not just loudly voiced opinions – for themselves and make up their own minds.

Venki Ramakrishnan, Professor and Deputy Director, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Professor Sir Venki Ramakrishnan (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) discusses how genetically modified crops could help solve the problem of food security.

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Opinion: How close are we to successfully editing genes in human embryos?

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 11:31:23 +0000

An important international summit on human gene editing recently recommended that researchers go ahead with gene editing human embryos, but keep revisiting how and when such modifications would be appropriate in the clinic. ̽��ֱ��decision came after some scientists called for a moratorium on such research.

̽��ֱ��recommendation was always going to be controversial, with many people concerned that the technology, which could be used to prevent parents from passing on genetic diseases to their children, will be misused and lead to permanent changes in the human gene pool.

But how close are we – is there really reason to be concerned at this point?

Laboratory promise

Gene editing of the human germline – those cells that form the sperm and eggs and, from a fertilised egg, will generate every cell in the human body – is different from other types of genetic editing because changes in those cells will be inherited by future generations, to become a permanent change in the human make-up.

Working on human germline cells at the very earliest stages of the formation of an embryo, just after an egg has been fertilised and then implants itself in the womb, is of course impossible to do in a pregnant woman. In my lab, where our focus is on early development, we approach this research using mice and, more recently, by simply growing human cells in a culture dish. In this way we have managed to identify some of the earliest genetic events that “specify” a stem cell to become a germline cell.

At the same time the technology underpinning gene editing, such as the CRISPR/Cas9 – a fast, easy and unprecedentedly precise method for targeting edits to specific genes – is becoming widespread across science. Together with the new ways of studying germline cells in the lab, this is offering a real chance for scientists and the public to consider whether or not editing of the human germline has merit – before any harm can be done.

We can now create human “primordial germ cells”, the precursors to eggs and sperm, from embryonic stem cells. It is a delicate and time-consuming procedure, and the resulting cells do not survive beyond the very early stages of development – partly because we have yet to reproduce the conditions that they are designed to thrive in. What we have been able to show is that some of the earliest steps in the development of human primordial germ cells are different from those in mice. This is important as most of the previous results in this area have come from mouse models, indicating that such information cannot actually be wholly extrapolated to describe humans.

Last year, we also managed to generate primordial germ cells from adult body cells, such as human skin cells. We take body cells that have been programmed to revert back into stem cells, and add chemical factors to “re-specify” them as primordial germ cells.

It is possible to create gene-edited sperm in mice. But humans may be a different story. Gilberto Santa Rosa from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil/wikimedia, CC BY-SA

While these cells don’t survive long either, experiments have shown that introducing such cells into the testes and ovaries of in mice does allow them to continue their development and maturation into sperm and eggs. Remarkably, such mice were able to give birth to healthy offspring raising the prospect of reprogrammed skin cells creating living human beings. For that reason it certainly makes sense to carry out similar studies using primates. Further research might also make it possible to develop working sperm and egg cells entirely in a culture dish.

Finished blueprint?

Looking ahead, it is clear that there already is a potential template for editing the human germline. Genome-sequencing methods could also provide for additional checks to ensure that no inadvertent mutations or “off-target” effects have occurred during the editing procedures.

What’s more, if viable sperm and eggs could be grown in the lab from primordial germ cells, they could be used to generate fertilised embryos. Such “pre-implantation” embryos could also be further screened (as is routine now in the in-vitro fertilisation procedure) to ensure transfer to the womb of only those embryos that are free from specific mutations.

So how could this work in a clinic? Imagine combining the procedures in one patient, for example a woman with a disease-causing mutation who does not wish to pass this mutation to her child. Starting with a cell taken from her skin, this is reprogrammed to a primordial germ cell, in which the DNA is then edited to remove the mutated gene. ̽��ֱ��primordial germ cell is developed into an egg and used to create an embryo for IVF, to be screened and transplanted back into her womb. The child and its subsequent descendants would be free of the mutated gene.

There’s a reason why the summit carefully considered such massive implications and nevertheless recommended to pursue such research. Without making further gains in our knowledge about the fundamental processes in early germ cell and embryo development – starting with growing germ cells for longer in the culture dish – we will not know what we can and cannot safely achieve with the new gene-editing technologies. We are still some way from being able to contribute the necessary biological evidence to society’s debate about which, if any, of these technologies to pursue.

Azim Surani, Director of Germline and Epigenomics Research at the Gurdon Institute, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Azim Surani (Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute) discusses gene editing of the human germline.

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A human embryo at the blastocyst stage, about six days after fertilization, viewed under a light microscope.

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Plant scientists call for rethink of GM crop regulation

jfp40 — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:50:22 +0000

In a report to the Council for Science and Technology, which advises the Prime Minister on science policy, the scientists warn that unless GM crops are regulated at national, rather than at EU level, European agriculture could suffer because it will be unable to adopt GM crops.

̽��ֱ��new regulatory system should be modelled on the way pharmaceuticals are licensed in the UK, says the report, which was written by scientists at the universities of Cambridge and Reading, ̽��ֱ��Sainsbury Laboratory and Rothamsted Research.

According to lead author Professor Sir David Baulcombe of the Department of Plant Sciences at Cambridge: “Most concerns about GM crops have nothing to do with the technology, which is as safe as conventional breeding.

“They are more often related to the way that the technology is applied and whether it is beneficial for small scale farmers or for the environment. To address these concerns we need to have an evidence-based regulatory process that focuses on traits, independent of the technology that has been used to develop them.”

This is the approach used for regulating pharmaceuticals, regulators looking at the effects that new drugs have on patients, not at the technology used to develop them – which in many cases involves genetic modification.

̽��ֱ��report recommends the European Food Safety Authority retains an advisory role on risk and safety, similar to the European Medicines Agency for pharmaceuticals, but that approval is made on a national basis, as by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence in the UK.

“As there is no evidence for intrinsic environmental or toxicity risks associated with GM crops, it is not appropriate to have a regulatory framework that is based on the premise that GM crops are more hazardous than crop varieties produced by conventional plant breeding,” it says.

Since GM crops were first developed 30 years ago, major advances in basic science have led to new methods for transferring genes into specific locations in a crop plant's genome.

To respond to today's challenges of population growth, climate change and environmental degradation, as well as the need to develop biofuels and other materials, the report argues plant breeders in the UK – which is a world leader in plant genomics – need GM technology and a well-functioning R&D pipeline for both GM and non-GM crop varieties.

GM crops were first grown commercially in the USA in 1994, and in Europe in 1998. They are now grown in 28 countries worldwide, with GM crops currently accounting for 12% of global arable acreage. Most of that acreage is soybean and cotton, and 81% of the global acreage of these crops is sown to GM varieties.

However, even though 70% of protein fed to livestock in the European Union is imported as GM crop products, less than 0.1% of the global acreage of GM crops is cultivated in Europe. This, the report argues, is because experimentation and commercial release of GM crops in the EU is subject to much more stringent regulation than conventionally bred plants, with a slow and inefficient approval process.

As a result, multinational companies such as BASF and Monsanto have abandoned research to develop GM crops in Europe, and there has been a significant reduction in experimental field trials in the UK, with only one in 2012, compared with 37 in 1995.

To ensure a well-functioning research and development pipeline that can translate genomic research from the laboratory to the market place, the report also recommends establishing a new R&D capacity – PubGM.

PubGM would allow preliminary evaluation of the practical application of academic research findings to crops, including field testing new GM crops either in partnership with companies or so that the public sector could validate traits before engaging in partnerships with the private sector.

Leading plant scientists have called for major changes to the way GM crops are licensed.

Most concerns about GM crops have nothing to do with the technology, which is as safe as conventional breeding.

Professor Sir David Baulcombe

Jesper Dyhre Nielsen

Field and sky

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Feeding seven billion

tdk25 — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 11:03:06 +0000

̽��ֱ��huge challenge of feeding the world’s fast-growing population - and its ethical, scientific, economic and political implications - will be the subject of a series of major public debates beginning in London next week.

Entitled “Feeding Seven Billion”, a figure which the global population is now believed to exceed, the series will give members of the public an opportunity to hear from, and interrogate politicians, policy-makers, researchers and academics on the general theme of food security over the course of three separate debates.

̽��ֱ��first event, on “Biotechnology, Intellectual Property and 21st century crops”, will be held at King’s Place, London N1 at 7pm on Monday, 26 November. ̽��ֱ��organisers of this series of debates, Dr Bhaskar Vira and Dr David Nally (both from the Department of Geography), have just published a blog on ̽��ֱ��Guardian website, which addresses some important issues in this context. They argue that the use and deployment of biotechnology has political, social and economic consequences which go beyond technical arguments about efficiency and effectiveness, and that this has important implications for global food security.

Put simply, food security is the question of how to ensure affordable and fair access to safe and nutritious food for everyone. Today, an estimated one billion people in developing countries already struggle to find enough food to meet their basic needs. Millions more suffer from the effects of an unhealthy diet in the developed world.

Given the predicted rate of population growth – some believe this will reach nine billion by 2050 – and the effects of climate change, feeding people is fast becoming one of the most urgent issues of the 21st century.

At the same time, however, opinion is divided on how best to solve the issues. Biotechnology, which will be the central theme of the first debate, offers huge potential to increase crop yields and reduce the vulnerability of crops to environmental effects like salt, drought, cold and heat. It can also help to make foods stay fresh for longer and reduce dependence on agrochemicals.

Whether, or how far, such technologies should be used remains highly contentious, however. ̽��ֱ��first debate will attempt to tackle many of the outstanding questions, such as how far private industrial interests are behind the promotion of agro-biotechnologies, whether technological innovation should be the main solution to the food security problem, and how far genetically-modified, “GM” foods are a threat to food safety.

Each debate will run for 90 minutes, with a focus on audience participation. ̽��ֱ��audience will first hear from a panel of three speakers, who will each have 15 minutes to outline their views. ̽��ֱ��debate will then be opened up to the audience.

̽��ֱ��debates are being hosted and organised by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s “Global Food Security” initiative – a strategic programme involving numerous different research projects and dozens of academics across the ̽��ֱ��. Its aim is to focus the ̽��ֱ��’s research talent on finding solutions to the food security challenge that are sustainable, fair and ecologically sound.

̽��ֱ��biotechnology debate will be chaired by Professor Chris Gilligan, Chair of the Cambridge Global Food Security Initiative. ̽��ֱ��panellists will be Dr Derek Byerlee (Chair of the Standing Panel on Impact Assessment and the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research); Professor Ian Crute (Chief Scientist, Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board. Lead Expert Group for the UK Foresight project on Food and Farming Future); and Professor Jack Kloppenburg (Distinguished environmental sociologist and award-winning author of “First the Seed: ̽��ֱ��Political Economy of Biotechnology).

̽��ֱ��second debate, on 28 January, 2013, will be on “Intensification versus extensification of global agriculture”, and will examine whether an industrialised approach to farming is the best way to feed the world’s population. ̽��ֱ��third event will be held on 8 April 2013.

Tickets for the debates are £9.50 each and can be obtained from the King’s Place website, www.kingsplace.co.uk. Further information about Cambridge Global Food Security can be found at http://www.globalfood.cam.ac.uk

With the world’s population already estimated to be over seven billion and rising fast, the challenge of how to produce enough food has never been more pressing. Three public debates will give people the chance to hear from and question politicians, researchers and journalists on the issues at stake.

Today, an estimated one billion people in developing countries already struggle to find enough food to meet their basic needs. Millions more suffer from the effects of an unhealthy diet in the developed world.

̽��ֱ��Alliance to End Hunger, via Flickr Creative Commons.

Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, on the Kenya-Somalia border. ̽��ֱ��Horn of Africa frequently experiences severe drought and hundreds of thousands of people have trekked to Dadaab seeking food, water, shelter and safety.

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Food security: your questions answered

lw355 — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 15:33:16 +0000

Should I use GM?

I live in Manipur, north eastern India. It’s a hilly area. ̽��ֱ��cropping system is a traditional terrace system and we sow once a year. We grow rice, some indigenous pulses, vegetables and fruit. Most of these crops are sown in the month of June and the rest of the year the land remains dry and unused. Nowadays cropping lands are reducing due to lack of water and growing of unwanted plants in the plot. So, I want to ask what measurement should we take either to adopt GM which we could not afford and is hardly available or should we focus on traditional recovery?

N G Ngashangva, Phadang Village Christian Compound, Manipur, India

Dear Mr Ngashangva, I do not think that there are GM varieties that would be useful to you – at least at present. However if you had herbicide-resistant crops then that might allow you to reduce weeds in your plots. It may also allow you to plant without ploughing or digging up the soil because you could drill holes to plant your herbicide resistant seed and then kill the weeds by herbicide application. Drought resistant GM crops are being developed but they are not available yet.

Professor Sir David Baulcombe

Can we tackle the financialisation of food?

I would like to ask what your analysis is of the impact of speculation in the food derivative markets on food prices. Bodies including the OECD and the G20 agriculture ministers are increasingly recognising the contribution of speculation in commodity derivative markets to food price spikes, which obviously has an immediate and negative impact on consumers everywhere, but especially in developing countries where food security is already a problem. Do you think we can tackle food security for the poorest people in the world without also tackling the financialisation of food globally?

Vicki Lesley, Brighton

̽��ֱ��theory is that food derivatives help farmers to hedge the price risk they face. Demand for food has grown enormously in recent years, not the least with the 'emergence' of the Indian and Chinese economies. ̽��ֱ��supply of food has suffered erratically due to climatic calamities. Food prices have not only risen but have been volatile. Uncertain prospects of future food prices encourage farmers to hoard, and volatile prices stifle investments. Derivatives contracts allow the price risk to be traded so that speculators can take it on, induced of course by some probable return. A farmer who fears that the price of his crop will decline as it grows can hedge the price risk by entering into a futures contract to sell his crop in so many months’ time at a price determined now. This principle of transferring risk from hedgers to speculators is also the basis of option contracts which give holders the right to buy or to sell the commodity at an agreed price on or before a specified future date. If derivatives markets stayed true to principle, they should help in discovering price and encourage farmers to invest in the right crops. That is the theory!

But as markets for food derivatives have grown, large buyers and sellers, attracted by the potential for speculative gains, have come to dominate the market, and physical hedgers are of much less significance. Demand and supply are now driven by speculative investment strategies in which commodities form one asset class in large portfolios.

Does this matter? ̽��ֱ��real price of food rises through changes in real demand and supply. Speculators never take physical delivery of the good. Can demand for futures contracts change real demand and their sales change real supply of food?

̽��ֱ��markets for food and for food derivatives are linked of course. Speculators act upon small events that can potentially create price fluctuations in the real market, and amplify them in the derivatives market. Momentum traders render prices volatile. Volatility in turn drives more speculation. Volatile derivative prices that result can move real food prices when (at least some) farmers take them as signals of real prices in the future, and change their inventories accordingly. ̽��ֱ��risk management and price discovery functions of the derivatives market are ever at risk of being washed out by speculators. More often than not, the tail can wag the dog.

Furthermore, in the globalised world, commodity futures markets in different countries are linked. Returns and volatility spill over from rich country markets to emerging and developing country markets. Even in rich countries, futures contracts and the commodities they represent often do not converge to the same value at contract settlement. So even farmers and producers who do have access to the derivatives market cannot hedge efficiently using futures contracts.

̽��ֱ��lives of large proportions of households in poor and developing economies depend on food prices. I agree with you that the need for the commodities futures market to be regulated more effectively, backed by careful research, is urgent.

Dr Paul Kattuman

How can we protect agricultural lands from urban spread?

I wish to congratulate you on such an innovative initiative to research into the biggest global concern - Food Security. Having been exposed to some of the causes of Global Food Insecurity as a young academic with background training and experience in Human Settlement Planning, I have come to appreciate that, one major challenge to ensuring food security is the invasion of prime agricultural land by residential and other urban land uses. In Ghana for instance, the pace of invasion is so fast that large tracts of fertile lands have suffered from urban expansion and population growth particularly in the peri-urban interface. This has not only resulted in reduced food production but has also taken away the very sources of livelihood derived by residents of peri-urban areas.

Against this background, I wish to know what practical strategies could be adopted within the framework of Spatial Planning to ensure that agricultural lands are protected as a basic prerequisite to ensuring food security. Secondly, I will be glad if the group could expound on how a good balance can be achieved between efforts by national and international communities to reverse deforestation and the provision of suitable land for food production as well as the sustenance of rural livelihoods.

Ransford Antwi Acheampong, Kwame Nkrumah ̽��ֱ�� of Science and Technology, Ghana

Thank you for these excellent questions. Although I am not an expert on spatial planning, my research deals with reconciling conflicting priorities for land, and as part of that work I spent a year in the forest zone of Ghana in 2006/2007.

Planners must consider a range of valid objectives (such as requirements for housing, commercial facilities, transport infrastructure, crop cultivation and biodiversity conservation) and attempt to find compromises between them to guide development without being overly prescriptive. To do this, a good place to start is in establishing very clearly what those objectives are, over an appropriate time horizon, by involving interested parties in a consultative process. Local plans need to be coherent with national policies, and national policies need to take account of local needs and constraints. If a particular group is excluded, there will be problems. For example, if only the needs of urban residents and businesses are considered in plans for urban expansion, and not those of peri-urban farmers (or of those who buy and eat the food they produce), any spatial plan will be built on a flawed foundation.

There is also a need for good information to inform decisions about zoning land for different uses. Here, communication and data-sharing between institutions is crucial. Which areas of land are most suitable for crop cultivation? Ghana has a Soils Research Institute which has produced detailed maps of crop suitability, but when I visited the country these were not accessible to planners. Which areas of land are most important for biodiversity conservation? Ghana has tropical forests internationally renowned for their diverse and endemic species, but while staff of the Forestry Commission might know this, many of those working within the Ministry of Food and Agriculture may not. These problems are not unique to Ghana: often here in the UK there is also poor communication between government departments.

How best to conserve forests while producing more food? My research in Ghana has persuaded me that the most promising approach is to grow more food on less land, while protecting (and in the long term, restoring) forests. Measures to increase food output while reducing food production can help too, such as reducing the amount of food that spoils before it can get to market. Increasing yields on existing farmland, while minimising pollution and other problems, will need the intensive application of both scientific knowledge and farmers’ knowledge. There is a role for planners here in synthesising information about the most appropriate lands for crop production (with good soils, low carbon storage and low biodiversity value) and directing agricultural development towards those areas.

In addition to targeting agricultural development towards existing croplands with the most potential, reducing deforestation will require zoning of land where further agricultural development is inappropriate. In Ghana, this might include all of the remaining high forests, many wetland areas, plus areas with potential for restoration, such as land dominated by shaded cocoa farms. Careful screening and regulation of any large-scale land acquisitions, particularly for biofuel crop cultivation, will be needed to ensure that they deliver real benefits for the nation and for local people, without damaging areas of high conservation value. Oil palm companies in Ghana have adopted a set of Principles and Criteria for responsible palm oil cultivation. Similar principles could be used to ensure that development of other crops, too, adheres to strict environmental and social safeguards.

Dr Ben Phalan

Should we instead address global overpopulation?

Thomas Malthus wrote. "Must it not then be acknowledged by an attentive examiner of the histories of mankind, that in every age and in every State in which man has existed, or does now exist, that the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence, that population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase, and, that the superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence, by misery and vice."

While not suggesting we do nothing and thereby cause misery and vice, by working to produce more food for a growing population, are we not just compounding the problem because it will enable the population to grow even bigger, requiring even more food, and at the same time having an even greater negative impact on our planet? Why not address the root of the problem, ie global overpopulation, by better education, financial incentives from government, and other means to encourage people to have less children and therefore reduce the population back to a level that is naturally sustainable on Earth?

Jacqueline Garget, Cambridge

̽��ֱ��term ‘overpopulation’ makes a normative claim about population size, so we might begin to answer your question by first positing another one: what constitutes an ‘ideal’ or ‘naturally sustainable’ population?

A few statistics might help us frame this discussion. According to the United Nations, Somalia, Sudan, and Mozambique, three African countries severely affected by hunger and malnutrition, have between 14 to 29 inhabitants per sq km. These figures contrast sharply with 400 people per sq km for the Netherlands, 351 for Belgium, and 255 for the UK. Ghana, which is twice the size of the UK, has nearly a third of the population of the latter. Yet, we are unaccustomed to thinking of the UK or Belgium as ‘overpopulated.’ Why? Well, clearly the long-term carry-capacity of an area, rather than the overall population density, is what matters most. But that point aside, I do not think that one needs to delve too deeply to see that the tendency to single out the developing world for attention expresses a deep and abiding fear of the other. We all know that we would need several additional planet Earths if everyone adopted the consumption patterns of the average America; and yet that knowledge does not tend to diminish the perception that it is ‘their’ prolificacy that threatens ‘our’ existence. Historian David Arnold puts this very well when he writes that ‘too many people’ usually means ‘too many of the wrong sorts of people.’

Of course, Malthus’s own account of the population problem was saturated in this kind of moral reasoning. ̽��ֱ��poor, especially the non-European poor, were creatures of nature that bred without any consideration of the consequences. Malthus believed that in the ‘southern climates’, where virtue was absent and the inhabitants lived in a ‘degraded state’, the perennial threat of war, pestilence and famine was necessary to sharpen faculties, force improvements, and prevent additional population increases. ̽��ֱ��‘four horsemen of the apocalypse’ were thus seen as a ‘positive check’ on human improvidence – a last resort to discipline the intractable and restore balance in the human and natural world.

̽��ֱ��latent racism of Malthus’ worldview is frequently ignored. Instead arguments tend to concentrate on his more general point that famines are caused by a decline in food availability brought on by an increase in human numbers. We might ask, then, if this is a helpful way to think about the aetiology of subsistence crises?

Unfortunately, measuring aggregate food supply against population totals – as Malthus did – is profoundly misleading, because it gives little consideration to the ways in which resources are unequally apportioned. This is one of the major contributions of Amartya Sen’s classic work on famines as ‘entitlement failures’ (Sen’s book, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, was first published in 1981). According to Sen, people starve when either their ‘endowments’ (by which he means their resources) or their ‘entitlement set’ (by which Sen means the bundle of goods and services that a person can legally utilise) change to such a degree that they can no longer obtain adequate sustenance.

Sen offers many examples to think about how shifts in resources and entitlements can lead to starvation. For example, a farmer and his family may starve because they find themselves unable to pay rent and are forced of the land. Alternatively they may starve or undergo severe hardship because the cost of labour or price of inputs (for, say, seeds and fertilisers) increases to such a degree that they are unable to undertake the usual cultivation the land. ̽��ֱ��point is that people ‘command’ food through a variety of mechanisms, and thus analysing the ‘entitlement set’ is much broader than looking only at, say, income or indeed food supply, as the determining factor in precipitating a subsistence crisis.

I spend some time discussing Sen’s Nobel Prize winning research because it demonstrates how the ‘famine question’ involves so much more than the ‘population question’. Or as Sen has put it himself, ‘the most important denial made by the entitlement approach is ... the simple analysis in terms of ‘too many people, too little food.’ ̽��ֱ��Malthusian ‘food availability decline’ model, as Sen calls it, presupposes that starvation deaths result from a severe interruption in the supply of food (caused by an environmental catastrophe, like a drought, or arising from the effects of overpopulation), whereas the ‘entitlement’ approach focuses attention on the allocation of resources within a market-based economy.

I find the latter approach to be a more helpful method to analyse the problem of global hunger. It is a well-established fact that there is enough food to feed the world’s present population – indeed by some estimates there is 20% more food than the world currently needs. Yet hunger persists and future famines seem very likely. I would suggest that the problem is less the number of people, than a particular kind of political economy that places food in some hands and not others.

Dr David Nally

How do we reclaim nutrients from water?

How long have we got to develop massive systems of nutrient reclamation from the world's sewers (before phosphate or potassium, or perhaps boron becomes limiting) and how much energy might such a system, require - energy that has to be added to our energy budget for the future? Agriculture exports nutrients to the cities of the world with every tonne of food supplied. Until mankind finds ways of returning those nutrients to the cropland (instead of flushing them out to sea) no system of farming can be described as sustainable. There is an added challenge here: we need those nutrients returned, but without the pollution that the cities inevitably mix with them - particularly heavy metal contamination.

Bruce Danckwerts, Choma, Zambia

Many of the world's larger communities are exploring the option of nutrient recovery, although often in the context of recovering the energy content of the organic matter in sewerage. For example the city of San Diego in California is producing such as system, in part in response to recovering energy content and in part to recover the water. Nutrient recovery has tended to be a side benefit. You are, however, correct that nutrient recovery will become increasingly important in the future, not only because the raw materials of nutrients are being depleted, but because the energy required to make these into useful materials such as fertilisers is quite large, and so contributes to the greenhouse gas emissions of nations.

Dr Douglas Crawford-Brown

Can we afford the energy input? Do we have adequate water resources?

Someone once said that modern agriculture is the conversion of fossil fuel calories into edible calories, due to the reliance on mechanisation. If oil prices continue to rise as predicted, the cost of farming will increase markedly, as will the cost of the food produced. Since it seems we can no longer control oil prices in a sustainable fashion, except by recession, it would appear that permanent food price rises are now a reality. How can we give people access to affordable food when we rely so heavily on expensive fossil fuel to produce it? Also, we know that water tables in the Middle East, China and Australia are already severely depleted, mainly due to the demands of agriculture. If this issue turns out to be more widespread, how on earth can we expand agriculture further?

Tristan Collier, Cambridge

Your comments are right on the mark. In fact, the Foreseer Project we are involved in aims to study the physical linkages between energy, agriculture and water resources to inform discussions like this on a local, regional and global level. ̽��ֱ��aim of the project is to develop an online visualisation tool to help the policy makers, industry and the general public understand the importance of future resources such as energy, land and water.

̽��ֱ��major physical linkages between food production and energy occur through the production and use of fertiliser (which uses about 2% of world energy production) and the use of fossil fuels for mechanisation of food production and transportation of food. Decreasing this physical reliance might make food prices less linked to energy prices. One possible strategy to do this would be to avoid the use of excess fertilisers.

Agricultural yields in developing countries could potentially increase without adding much mechanisation, fertilisation and irrigation. Yields and productivity can be improved by better informing the local farmers about the use of new practices, such as agro-forestry and soil moisture conservation practices, including minimum tillage, depending on local conditions.

Water scarcity is probably the biggest limitation to expansion of agricultural production, as you correctly point out. There is some room for improvement, such as better irrigation technologies, rainwater harvesting and increase use of wastewater in agriculture production. However we agree that agricultural production cannot be expanded infinitely. Using desalinated water is also an option, though today it is still much too expensive to be used for irrigation – and it comes at energy price. One of the main goals of ̽��ֱ��Foreseer tool is to include this kind of energy, water and land interactions into the analysis.

Grant Kopec, Bojana Bajzelj and Liz Curmi

Is GM the answer?

How can GM technologies serve enough food for the human population which is growing rapidly every year and if we compare with sosiocultural aspect of human, poverty and planting areas? Maybe we can increase the quality and quantity of food with genetically modified food, but it can’t compare with population growth. I come from Indonesia, most people said my country is a high biodiversity country, evergreen and we can grow up every vegetable and rice, but it can serve for Indonesian (for about 200 million people), there are many malnutrition children, hungeroedema and etc. What do you think about the connection between population growth, poverty and quantity of foods?

Rikhsan Kurniatuhadi, ̽��ֱ�� of Tanjungpura, Pontianak City, Indonesia

To feed the growing population we will likely need a whole array of approaches. This will include, but will not be limited to strategies like traditional breeding, enhanced breeding strategies (including making use of genetic information that is not currently residing in the genepool of the crop in question), as well as improvements in engineering aspects of agriculture, and the supply chain itself. All of these areas have the potential to be important. Whether any one part of the process, including genetic modification, is the most important will only be clear when we look back.

However, there are traits that one could engineer into crops to improve tolerance to stresses, including pest and pathogen attack. There are also the approaches currently being taken to improve nutrition of crops. There is also the possibility of using natural variation in photosynthesis to increase the potential yield of crops. There is growing support for the argument that, to maintain biodiversity, we need to ensure the agricultural land that is in use is used as efficiently as possible. ̽��ֱ��hope is that multiple technologies will be combined and this will contribute to sustainable food production in the future.

Dr Julian Hibberd

And finally….

Watch out for the following events at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Festival of Ideas:

Is the future of food GM?

Saturday 22 October 3.30pm – 4.30pm, Faculty of Law, Sidgwick Site

What are the challenges and solutions to the global food crisis? Are genetically modified crops a natural progression in efficient agriculture or are we playing God with nature?

Can we afford not to embrace GM? Join Professor Sir David Baulcombe, Regius Professor of Botany; Tony Juniper, Sustainability Adviser; David Nally, Department of Geography and the chair, Jack Stilgoe, ̽��ֱ�� of Exeter for the debate.

Seven billion: the crowded planet

Tuesday 25 October, 6pm – 7pm, Mill Lane Lecture Rooms, 8 Mill Lane

̽��ֱ��world’s population will reach seven billion this year. Can the Earth sustain this many people and is reproductive freedom a fundamental liberty? What will the future hold for a crowded planet? Panel discussion with Professor John Guillebaud, Population Matters; Sara Parkin, Forum for the Future; Dr Rachel Murphy, ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford; Fred Pearce, author of Peoplequake and the chair, Sir Tony Wrigley, Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure.

Energy policy: should scientists be in charge?

Thursday 27 October, 5.30pm – 6.30pm, Judge Business School, Trumpington Street

̽��ֱ��Electricity Policy Research Group lift the lid on the long-standing dispute between engineers and economists. Who knows best and whose contributions should be used to solve the problems of energy usage in the UK today?

For more information about these and many other events, please visit www.cam.ac.uk/festivalofideas

Over the past month, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has been profiling research that addresses one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century – how to guarantee enough food, fairly, for the world’s rapidly expanding population. As part of this, we asked whether you had a question that you wanted us to answer, and put them to a panel of academics who specialise in research to do with food security. Here's what they had to say. Thanks to everyone who sent questions in!

I would suggest that the problem is less the number of people, than a particular kind of political economy that presents some people as a liability to the welfare of others.

David Nally

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Vegetables

Panel contributors

Professor Sir David Baulcombe

Sir David Baulcombe is Regius Professor of Botany, a Royal Society Research Professor and Head of the Department of Plant Sciences. His research interests include genetic regulation, disease resistance and gene silencing; he discovered small interfering RNA and the importance of this molecule in epigenetics and in defence against viruses. In 2008, he chaired a Royal Society Working Group on how biological approaches can enhance global food crop production. In 2009, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to plant science.

Dr Douglas Crawford-Brown

Douglas Crawford-Brown is Executive Director of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research in the Department of Land Economy. He is interested in all aspects of research related to the development of policies for mitigating the risks of environmental change, including - but not restricted to - climate change, and has provided expertise to government bodies and businesses.

Dr Julian Hibberd

Julian Hibberd is a plant scientist in the Department of Plant Sciences. His research interests lie in the evolution and assembly of photosynthetic apparatus in plants. In 2008, he was named by Nature magazine as one of ‘Five crop researchers who could change the world’ for his research, which would greatly increase the efficiency of photosynthesis and create a rice cultivar that could ‘have 50% more yield’.

Dr Paul Kattuman

Paul Kattuman is a Reader in Economics at Cambridge Judge Business School and Director of Studies in Economics and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College. Dr Kattuman’s research interests include: applied econometrics and statistics; industrial organisation; distribution dynamics methods and applications; online markets; the software industry; co-operative game theory applications; system dynamics; India. He is a member of the Business & Management Economics subject group at Cambridge Judge Business School and is on the editorial board of the B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy. Prior to beginning his academic career, he was an economist in the Indian civil service.

Dr David Nally

David Nally is political geographer in the Department of Geography. His research focuses on the relationship between famine and society and the politics of disaster relief, as well as the historical origins of development geographies and theories of political violence. Nally has also worked on the political economy of agro-biotechnologies. His latest book Human Encumbrances: Political Violence and the Great Irish Famine (2011) traces the causes of the Irish Famine of 1845-50.

Dr Ben Phalan

Ben Phalan is a conservation biologist in the Department of Zoology and a junior research fellow at Churchill College. His current research is concerned mainly with understanding the impacts of agriculture on tropical faunas and identifying land use strategies to minimise those impacts. He works in collaboration with BirdLife International, the RSPB and the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

Grant Kopec, Bojana Bajzelj, Liz Curmi

Grant Kopec, Bojana Bajzelj and Liz Curmi are researchers on the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge's Foreseer Project, a cross-departmental project which examines current and future interactions between the supply and demand of regional energy, land and water resources. Collectively, they have expertise in water economics, energy systems, land-use issues and climate change mitigation.

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