The Hungry Earth

For policymakers, malnutrition is among the most challenging public health problems to address. Gail Harrison, a professor in the School of Public Health who specializes in international nutrition issues, notes that, unlike a disease that focuses on a defined segment of the population or one that could be prevented for life with a single vaccine, "with malnutrition, 100 percent of the population is at risk from birth to death."

Complicating matters is the so-called Nutrition Transition: the dramatic rise in the developing world of obesity, portending an epidemic of chronic adult conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer and heart disease in countries still wracked by malnutrition. "It's a terrific policy dilemma," says Harrison, who has consulted with the World Health Organization, UNICEF and other key organizations and governments on nutritionrelated matters.

Fighting Hunger: Lab Results

The Web site of Ceres, the Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based plant genomics company that Goldberg co-founded in 1997, touts the words of Philip H. Abelson, the late former editor of the journal Science, who said of the nascent genomics revolution: "Thus far, the pharmacological potential of genomics has been emphasized, but the greatest ultimate global impact of genomics will result from the manipulation of the DNA of plants. Ultimately the world will obtain most of its food … from genetically altered vegetation and trees."

Worldwide, more than 1 billion acres of genetically engineered crops have been planted in the last decade. Opponents, particularly in Europe, have been vocal over such issues as how much control big business has over food supply and the potential lack of genetic diversity in foods, but Ceres president and CEO Richard Hamilton argues that biotechnology simply turns up the power on breeding methods that have been practiced for thousands of years. "Agriculture itself is a human invention," he says. "Corn didn't just spring forth from some mythical garden of Eden."

Plant biotechnology selects for desired genetic traits just as conventional breeding does, Hamilton argues, replacing the traditional trial-and-error process with the ability to knowingly manipulate specific genes. Improving agriculture through technology can pay substantial dividends. The adoption of modern genetics practices in breeding has tripled corn yield since 1940. And the green revolution — a movement launched in the 1970s to raise yields through the use of hybrid seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation — tripled wheat production and turned India from a net importer to a net exporter.

When UCLA 's Westwood campus opened in 1929, it was part of a rural county with 14,000 farms, and the university's College of Agriculture was a major resource for the area's farmers. When Goldberg shares that information with his surprised students, it's to make a larger point: The transformation of Los Angeles into an urban center after World War II is emblematic of what is happening everywhere — and as a result, it's going to become increasingly important to find ways to produce food for a growing population on diminishing agricultural land.

Soon, Goldberg and his scientific colleagues around the world will have identified and defined the functions of all of the genes necessary to program the entire life cycle of crop plants, enabling better yield even under less-than-ideal conditions. Will that result in a better-nourished population?

Says Stamoulis: "The issue is to what extent this increased food supply is translated into increased food consumption for those who don't have enough to eat."

Published Aug 24, 2007 5:08 PM