Will Frankenfood Save The Planet Analysis

Think of a world where technology takes over everything. Not only are robots taking over our jobs and cell phones are becoming our permanent computers, but think about technology taking over our agricultural system. An author named Jonathan Rauch, who is known as a widely published commentator on contemporary culture, science, and politics, published an essay in The Atlantic in 2003 titled “Will Frankenfood Save the Planet?” It discusses the possibility of biotechnology taking over the agricultural system we have now and the effects it would have on not only our country, but also other countries as well. Rauch does not realize that biotechnology could never solely take over the production system and provide the amount of food necessary for

The first half of the essay Rauch is for biotechnology, and then during the second half it is almost as if he is not sure. One example of this is when he went to the World Wildlife Fund and asked the organization’s vice-president “if he thought that, absent biotechnology, the world could feed everybody over the next forty or fifty years without ploughing down the rainforests” [1]. Even though the vice-president agrees that it would not be possible, Rauch begins to infer that he does not know what he is talking about, and points out that he has low credentials when it comes to the “greens” [1]. Another example would be when Rauch says huge problems would arise in third world countries if biotechnology became mandatory, and then questions “who cares” about them anyway [1]. According to the American Chemical Society journal, “Environmental Science and Technology”, “crop yields on farms in developing countries that used sustainable agriculture rose nearly 80 percent in four years” [4]. With this type of improvement, the third world countries would not need to immediately be taught biotechnology anyway. They could probably eventually figure it out on their