Future soybean farmers in Rwanda anyway (if and when any of these predictions come to pass). Sixty plus years off is such a stretch. I’m still not 60 years old, but closing… but if I go back just 40 years I would not have predicted GMOs, UAVs, MAS, RNA-seq, and a whole host of other technologies we have at our disposal today. Southern corn leaf blight (and the use of CMS for hybrid corn seed production) was all the rage then. Paul Ehrlich could have (did) predicted doom and gloom and used the situation at the time to make his case.
I’m not suggesting that we’ll invent our way out any and all future difficulty, but I will predict the values in the table will be wrong.
Not suggesting we do nothing. There are things we are already doing that I believe will make these figures wrong. Plant breeding technology has developed at an amazing rate in the last 40 years alone. And as the climate changes the populations of plants under selection will change as well. Different species can be brought into the tent (though domestication does seem a trickier business than once imagined) – different uses for current domesticates – better application of current technological assets (for breeding husbandry and processing) – invention of new technological assets (for breeding, husbandry, and processing). And crop wild relatives… we’re hardly screwed; we have amazing opportunity. But I suppose we could do a bunch of stupid things along the way and ruin such a rosy future. We could. Let’s not.
Future soybean farmers in Rwanda anyway (if and when any of these predictions come to pass). Sixty plus years off is such a stretch. I’m still not 60 years old, but closing… but if I go back just 40 years I would not have predicted GMOs, UAVs, MAS, RNA-seq, and a whole host of other technologies we have at our disposal today. Southern corn leaf blight (and the use of CMS for hybrid corn seed production) was all the rage then. Paul Ehrlich could have (did) predicted doom and gloom and used the situation at the time to make his case.
I’m not suggesting that we’ll invent our way out any and all future difficulty, but I will predict the values in the table will be wrong.
The figures may turn out to be wrong. But is that a reason to do nothing?
Not suggesting we do nothing. There are things we are already doing that I believe will make these figures wrong. Plant breeding technology has developed at an amazing rate in the last 40 years alone. And as the climate changes the populations of plants under selection will change as well. Different species can be brought into the tent (though domestication does seem a trickier business than once imagined) – different uses for current domesticates – better application of current technological assets (for breeding husbandry and processing) – invention of new technological assets (for breeding, husbandry, and processing). And crop wild relatives… we’re hardly screwed; we have amazing opportunity. But I suppose we could do a bunch of stupid things along the way and ruin such a rosy future. We could. Let’s not.
I’m sure we will. We always do. But hopefully not that many.