Banking on Genes to Beat Climate Change

While much has been said about livestock’s contribution of greenhouse gases to climate change, too little has been said about how climate change will affect the world’s food supply.  Indeed, scientists are justifiably worried about why food and sustainability are overlooked in discussions on human adaptability to climate change. Given the pressures on food production by environmental changes already taking place and a human population that will soon exceed 1 billion people, such an oversight can lead to record rates of starvation in the foreseeable future.

Just last month, for example, a UN sponsored climate change meeting in South Africa totally ignored climate change induced challenges in food production and focused instead on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. But that’s just one example among many.

Such is mind-boggling since it should be obvious that producing drought- and disease- resistant livestock is a bigger imperative than ever if a booming human population is to be fed through a series of erratic changes in the weather.

This means that genetic modification is of more importance to human survival rates than previously thought. Yet the world’s focus tends to be on organic farming where genetic modification is at best frowned upon and at worst outright banned. Organic farming does indeed have an important role in human survival rates but it cannot be the only answer to the increasingly complex global problem of climate change.

Indeed, such a myopic view may prove devastating to the already shrinking genetic resources in every country of the world. Gene banks can act as a backup to maintaining breeds in the production systems where they were developed. But they can also provide hardier stock for countries where current livestock is not faring well in a suddenly altered environment.

Traditionally, livestock breeders have shared animal genetic resources willingly with neighboring breeders. More recently, there is some gene swapping among breeders in different countries although that is stifled by growing protections of intellectual property and commercial interests. But if climate change continues to impact entire regions, then gene restoration and/or gene modification may prove to be our last defense against starvation on a scale that few can imagine now.

In the journal Science, scientists spell out why it is so hard for food security to gain traction in climate change discussions. But those are not the only reasons. Chief among the resistance are the science-deniers found in big numbers in leading countries like the U.S. Science-deniers fiercely refuse to believe climate change or evolution exist. Further, they actively block the use and large-scale acceptance of the biosciences as a means to address many of man’s food problems.

Perhaps it is time for farmers to stand beside scientists and explain in an earthy way to the people around the world exactly what is happening now to both the weather and food production. Because this is no high-brow, intellectual discussion, nor is it an attack on religious or political values. Food is simply a necessity for all and even the science-deniers will learn that soon enough. It is better for us all if we present a show-and-tell than for nature to do so.