GM foods are less likely to “ruin” the environment (what does that really mean in the current situation of accelerating global climate change?) than the rampant denial of a portion of the food and agricultural technologies currently available. Are you aware of how many far more immediate threats to the biodiversity and sustainability of farming practice are already being practised out of necessity? For every plant that is able to be farmed at a higher density without the application of herbicide, there is a decrease in energy consumption making, shipping and administering the far more toxic and bioaccumlatory herbicides currently in use. For every plant that is able to inherently defend itself by producing a compound toxic only to insects (of which plants have evolved many, many other mechanisms that have been bred out of our commercial crops since the start of agriculture), there is increased yield and decreased reliance of fossil fuel intensive insecticides currently in use.

Organic food production is fantastic as it generally ties in great farming practice with people that are passionate about food and its place in society. However, the ability of foods produced in the manner to scale to the larger production volumes required to meet global needs has not yet been shown. You are absolutely correct that we don’t have so much as a global production shortage as we do a distribution shortage, yet for every 50% increase in yield from a crop field, there is 50% of additional wild land that is not required to be turned over into farmland. GM (or better put in this argument, ‘transgenic’) technologies are not the panacea of the worlds food problems, but they are a far better approach that sticking our heads in the sand and waiting for our problems to solves themselves.

The vast majority of genetically engineered crops currently on the market have been modified to either withstand herbicide (so that more can be sprayed) or produce their own insecticide.

Nice, yeah?