Biotechnology is key to meeting UN’s goal of zero hunger worldwide by 2030

Agricultural biotechnology is a crucial tool for transforming global food systems to meet the United Nation’s goal of ensuring zero hunger by 2030, say some scientists, academics and civil society representatives.

Evidence abounds that biotechnology has had a positive overall impact on agriculture in the areas where it has been employed, they say. If adopted more widely across the globe, it could be instrumental in meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2, which aims to end world hunger, boost nutrition and support agricultural sustainability within the next nine years.

“GMO technology is working for farmers,” observed Arif Hossain, CEO of Farming Future Bangladesh. He cited the six-fold increase in income that farmers in Bangladesh have earned as a result of growing Bt eggplant, an important food crop genetically modified to resist the destructive fruit and shoot borer pest without the application of insecticides.

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Hossain made his comments during a Food Systems Summit independent dialogue organized by the Alliance for Science. The dialogue was one of thousands being held across the world ahead of the UN’s extraordinary global Food Systems Summit in September, where the future of the world’s food systems will be deliberated. 

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