An interesting interview with a UC Berkeley professor that discusses the impacts of genetic engineering on small farmers, with some added links.  

With starvation threatening one-sixth of the world’s population, and the West’s technological solutions called into question””the Green Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s failed to solve the problem, and now the Gene Revolution, or agricultural biotechnology, is under increasing attack ””many think it’s time for another way.

Berkeley’s Miguel Altieri, an associate professor of insect biology in the College of Natural Resources, has a world-wide reputation for his alternative solution: “agroecology,” or sustainable agriculture, which respects the knowledge of indigenous peoples, protects the environment, and promotes social equity.

What is the common understanding of the cause of world hunger?

Most people perceive the problem of hunger and malnutrition as a gap between population and food production.

Meaning too many people””six billion on the planet””and not enough food?  Exactly. But that’s a Malthusian view of the world, which says that famine is inevitable because the population grows at a faster rate than  food can be produced; there’s no data that supports that view. In fact, today there’s enough food in the world to feed nine billion people. The real problems are poverty and distribution: Three billion people live on $2 a day, and people lack access to land to produce the food they need.

Furthermore, most of the food that is being produced is fed to cattle. In the United States, seven out of ten pounds of grain are fed to animals. In Latin America, Asia, and Africa there are huge amounts of land that are devoted to soybean production for export to Europe to feed cattle””which, by the way, the Europeans are killing because of mad cow and foot-and-mouth diseases.

Full interview and links:
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/GE2/Miguel-Altieri-Agroecology.htm