By developing crops that more efficiently absorb nutrients from the soil, biotechnology can help farmers produce more on land already under cultivation, and may reduce the need for costly inputs such as fertilizer and non-renewable resources, such as oil and natural gas. A Mexican scientist Luis Herrera Estrella has shown that by using biotechnology tropical crops can be modified to tolerate aluminum and acid soils to significantly increase the productivity of corn, rice and papaya. Biotech crops that require less tilling may help to decrease soil erosion. And the development of plants that can grow in tough conditions, such as drought, or dry or poor soil, may make it easier to farm marginal lands, helping to keep fragile soils such as wetlands and rainforests out of food production. Biotechnology holds tremendous promise for the developing world.
World hunger is a complex issue, one for which there is no one answer.
Yet while biotechnology may not be the only solution , it can be a valuable tool in the struggle to feed a hungry world. Encyclopedia Britannica online edition, 2000. Advancing Altruism in Africa. Ithaca, New York. William H. Danforth, chairman, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, January 9, 2000.