Within living memory, a scientist wrote a bestseller declaring “The battle to feed all of humanity is over.” It was 1968 when Paul Ehrlich declared that humans had lost the battle and predicted mass starvation and hundreds of millions of deaths in the years ahead.
Science made the scientist wrong — and Ehrlich’s population bomb was defused.
There are more people alive today than ever before, and yet hundreds of millions fewer people are hungry. Modern agricultural technologies, including genetic modifications, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to control crop killers are increasing productivity. As a result, humans can produce more food on less land.
This use of technologies isn’t especially new. Farmers have been genetically engineering crops since the dawn of time. For millennia, humans have mixed seeds and grafted branches to create varieties of crops that grow better, produce more food, and are less attractive to pests. Modern techniques are just better than ever.
The same thing is true of pesticides. Thousands of years ago, Sumerians used sulfur compounds to stop insects, while early Chinese civilizations deployed mercury and arsenic against body lice. These were dangerous chemicals, and humanity has moved toward safer ways to control pests.
Because of recent scientific advances, pesticide toxicity has plunged by 98%, and growers can use less than ever before while getting the same results. The benefits of pesticides are miraculous: Without pesticides, up to 80% of many crops would be lost, and we would need much more land to grow enough food to feed the world’s 7.9 billion humans.
That means fewer places for people to live, and it means an increase in carbon emissions.
Agriculture already accounts for 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions. That number will increase dramatically if environmental activists are successful in vilifying pesticides.
Using pesticides to increase crop yields without clearing more land for farming is one of the greatest achievements in modern history. Here in the United States, for example, 120 million acres have been spared because of the modernization of the agricultural industry since World War II.
As a Stanford University study points out, “Researchers estimate that if not for increased yields, additional greenhouse gas emissions from clearing land for farming would have been equal to as much as a third of the world’s total output of greenhouse gasses since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in 1850.”
At the recent climate conference in Scotland, food security was one of the primary topics on the agenda. Most of sub-Saharan Africa is struggling to produce enough food. Leaders at the conference agreed that as more crops are planted (on land cleared of trees and other natural growth), emissions rise. At the same time, poverty is greatly worsened and the need for social welfare increases. Food insecurity leads to political and social instability.
Over the next century, the Earth’s population will swell by more than 2 billion before peaking at about 11 billion people. In order to continue feeding a growing global population and producing enough food to keep prices affordable for even the world’s poorest people, policymakers will have to make the right choice.
Rather than promoting policies that seek to eliminate pesticides, which would devastate the environment and kill millions of people through famine and malnutrition, global leaders must embrace the development of safer, more efficient pesticides.
Scientists must be encouraged to continue creating new pesticides that allow farmers to produce more food from less land. The result will be less starvation, more healthy people, fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and more land in its natural, unfarmed state.
Drew Johnson is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research. He researches energy, environmental, and tech policy issues.
