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<\/div>There are two monumental problems with the world\u2019s food system. Firstly, hundreds of millions of people can\u2019t afford to buy enough nutritious food to stay healthy. Secondly, it is incredibly destructive. We are still razing rainforests to make way for ranches, and both conventional and organic farms produce all kinds of pollutants, with food systems generating more than a third of greenhouse gases<\/a>.<\/p>\n As the world soars past a 1.5\u00b0C rise in temperature (see \u201c2024 is set to be the first year that breaches the 1.5\u00b0C warming limit\u201d<\/a>), things could get much worse. But there is plenty we can do, from eating less meat to reducing food waste (see \u201cIs the climate change food crisis even worse than we imagined?\u201d<\/a>). With the amazing advances in genetic technologies<\/a> in recent years, there is also huge scope to improve the plants and animals that provide our food. We can make them more nutritious, healthier<\/a>, better able to cope with changing conditions<\/a> and less susceptible to diseases that are thriving as the world warms. We should also be able to create plants that need less fertiliser and capture more of the sun\u2019s energy.<\/p>\n It is astounding that most countries aren\u2019t investing heavily in improving crops<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The benefits from all this would be enormous: more food from less land, lower prices, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and less chance of viruses such as H5N1 bird flu causing another pandemic.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So it is astounding that most countries aren\u2019t investing heavily in improving crops. There is some private investment, but those companies are unlikely to make their technologies freely available, slowing their adoption.<\/p>\n We are also restricted by the notion that more \u201cnatural\u201d means of farming are better, with opposition to genetically modified (GM) crops making it difficult and expensive to get them approved.<\/p>\n\n