Can GM crops feed the hungry?

Andrea Roberto Sonnino, a senior agricultural research officer at the Research and Extension Unit of the FAO in Italy, says: "GM can contribute to improved nutrition but we have to consider that nutrition is a result of many social, cultural, economic and political factors".

To improve the nutrition of the poor, action cannot be limited to the improvement of the nutritional quality of a particular crop, he says.

Bonnie McClafferty, head of development and communications at HarvestPlus agrees.

"The enormity and complexity of the problem means we need [many] solutions to be made available, including diversifying diets, commercially fortifying foods, administering nutrition supplements, and breeding crops to be rich in vitamins and minerals," she says.

"While the amounts of desired nutrient in food crops can be enhanced through conventional breeding, where these nutrients are not found in parent breeding lines, or cannot be increased in the amount needed to improve nutrition, GM foods can be seen as part of the solution."

"GM technology may well be able to go beyond where conventional plant breeding can take us."

Perhaps, as with the approach to climate change, the solution lies in a web of interventions of which GM may be one.

And, like climate change, it may be foolhardy to ignore any of them.