That's very interesting. One of the problems is that it's extremely complex. It is not as simple as saying you have to have a genetically modified plant or you have to go to organic agriculture. If you want a plant to be more productive, whether you bred it conventionally or used some form of genetic engineering, that plant is almost certainly going to require more water. Where is the water going to come from? Your strategy will depend on whether you're growing this stuff in an arid area, a semi-arid area, or a place with lots of water. And this is really what I was getting at when I was talking about a complex agricultural system.
It's easy for lobby groups to pick out one of these problems and demand that it has to be solved right now at all costs, without thinking of the unintended consequences of those actions. That is why I come back to making sure that the public is properly informed so they can make good choices, not choices based on partial information or on powerful lobbies. That is the thing that concerns me.
If it is more appropriate for a small farmer with a holding of maybe a hectare in India to grow crops organically using farmyard manure, that's fine. There is no one solution to this. But the problem is that as soon as you get into these issues, it often appears as though there's just one solution. And that's where we need to engage the public more in these debates about the importance of the agricultural industry. After all, we have to feed another three billion people and we only have 40 years to do it.