A number of current world problems take on additional importance when the question is asked: Will they become more challenging in the next 50 years, or will solutions be found that diminish or eradicate their effect on the 9 billion people that are projected to inhabit Earth in 2050?

Providing for future energy needs has received the most attention, but world undernourishment may be just as pressing, and not for the reasons commonly talked about.

An article in the July 29 edition of the British science journal Nature, “The Growing Problem” makes a distinction between hunger – starvation – and chronic malnourishment – food intake that regularly provides less than energy requirements. Starvation has been most prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa, and fortunately it has been declining. Undernourishment, however, has been increasing, and the greatest number – 63 percent – was found to be in the Far East and Pacific. Developed countries accounted for 2 percent; North Africa and the Near East 4 percent; Latin America and Caribbean 5 percent; and Sub-Saharan Africa 26 percent. Furthermore, the cause of the undernourishment was not that food was unavailable, but that people were too poor to buy it.

The study also predicted that prices would not go down enough to accommodate poor people’s dietary needs as long as the developing world depends on exports from industrialized countries. That’s because western food production is geared to a more affluent market. The only realistic and lasting solution is for the developing countries to become more effective in feeding their own people. That means producing hardier crops and greater yields in countries that experience severe droughts, high salinity and lack of soil nutrients. The study concluded that more agricultural research is needed, especially in the biotechnology area, if increased yields are to be achieved.

A second article in the same issue of Nature, “Inside the Hothouses of Industry,” addressed what must happen in research and funding to equip developing nations to feed their own people. Because biotechnology was identified as the key to providing that support, the major players in that field – Monsanto, Pioneer Hi-Bred and the British company Syngenta – were the focus of the discussion.

Monsanto’s business approach is a good illustration of the problem. The company’s mainstay business today is selling pesticide- and herbicide-resistant seeds, the product farmers in the developed countries want and will pay for. But that is not what farmers in developing countries need, nor could they pay for the seeds if they were needed.

Fortuitously as it turns out, the yields from pesticide-resistant crops in the west has peaked, and so have the profits for the seeds. Now, the next big commercial gain for U.S. farmers, and for Monsanto, lies in crops that can withstand water-deficient soil. Farmers in developing countries also need such crops, but paying for the seeds remains a stumbling block.

An arrangement is evolving with biotech companies where they will give Third World organizations such as the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research, not the seeds themselves, but the technology to produce the seeds. With Monsanto, that would be the cspB sequencing technology to grow drought-tolerant crops. These partnerships are funded with a $47 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates and the Howard G. Buffett Foundations.

A biotech spokesperson said that these investments are not just humanitarian efforts but good business practice, because the free exchange of technology will not go on forever. As soon as the subsistence farmers can move to commercial farming then, in theory, the biotechs can start charging for seeds for other types of crops that could boost productivity such as those that can grow under high salinity and nutrient-deficient conditions.

There are still obstacles that could lesson or prevent these private-public partnerships from being effective. For one, scientists are concerned about how far the biotech companies are willing to go in providing free technological help. The strength of their commitment will largely determine whether current undernourishment will still be around in 2050.

For another, malnourishment eradication is not dependent entirely on new types of seeds, however cleverly engineered, but also on the developing countries’ acceptance of the seeds. The hindrance to acceptance in the past has been the fabricated stories about the dangers of genetically engineered crops, emanating from anti-biotech organizations such as Greenpeace and the Organic Conservation Association. If these New Age Luddites continue with scare tactics that have no scientific justification, they must be held equally accountable if Third World undernourishment persists over the coming years.

Garth Buchanan holds a doctorate in applied science and has 35 years of experience in operations research. Reach him at gbuch@frontier.net.