The potential transfer of traits by pollen remains the same as ever. Genetically modified corn kills monarch butterflies. Since that publication, many university researchers, including others at Cornell, have stepped forward to stress that the monarch study did not represent natural conditions and that extensive environmental research has confirmed the safety of Bt corn on non-target insects, such as the ladybird beetle, honeybee and the green lacewing, in the natural environment. As with any scientific issue, several studies are needed before conclusions can be made. Biotechnology cannot relieve world hunger.
Biotechnology can help alleviate hunger worldwide.
In the next 50 years the global population is expected to double, reaching more than 8 billion people by 2050. Population growth and diet upgrading will require the food supply to increase by at least 250 percent from its current quantity. The amount of land currently committed to food production approximately 36 percent of the earth's cumulative land mass cannot yield the amount of food needed by this increased population. Although forests could be cleared to obtain needed acreage, a better approach is to find ways of getting greater crop yield from existing land. Plants from biotechnology can deal with these hardships and dramatically increase the percentage of crops that survive and are harvested each year.