Yet even at current global average productivity, this could support the increased population if food was fairly distributed. It is increasingly monopolised by large transnational corporations which manipulate markets in their own interests, subverting the roles of democratic governments and creating a neo-colonial South. In the USA, the top quarter of sustainable farms have, after 10 years of operation, similar or better yields and greater profits than the top quarter with high chemical inputs. Fantasies and land rights - In Green Revolution countries, food security has been undermined by the need for export earnings from cash crops. High inputs must be paid for from falling commodity prices, making a fantasy of national prosperity.
Fantasy is again abroad in the rush to promote biotechnology.
Furthermore, high capital needs have concentrated land ownership and increased indebtedness. The dispossessed swell urban slums and food insecurity increases with dependence on imports. And in Andhra Pradesh, India, in early 1998, indebtedness caused 350 farmers to commit suicide. There may be short-term savings in production costs and perhaps solutions to isolated problems, though their adoption will increase the corporate stranglehold over farmers. In the longer term, rapid increases in resistance, the toxic effect on natural predators and soil microbes coupled with GMO instability and unpredictability may increase chemical inputs and could have devastating effects on the land's natural productivity and biodiversity.