Proponents of generally modified foods say they are safe and can boost harvests even in bad conditions by protecting against pests, weeds and drought . This, they argue will be essential to meeting the needs of a booming population in decades to come and avoiding starvation . However, Doug Gurian - Sherman, senior scientist for the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group, said genetic engineering for insect resistance has provided only a modest increase in yields since the 1990s and drought-resistant strains have only modestly reduced losses from drought. Moreover, he said conventional crossbreeding or cross - pollinating of different varieties for desirable traits, along with improved farming, is getting better results, boosting yields at a lower cost . In fact, much of the food Americans eat has been genetically modified by those conventional methods over thousands of years, before genetic engineering came into practice . Overall genetic engineering does not get nearly the bang for the buck as conventional breeding and improve agricultural [ 判断题 ] Para . 2 mentions that insect-resistant genetically modified food has only showed a fairly small increase in production.

        By 2050, the world's population is projected to rise to 9 billion from just over 7 billion currently. Proponents of generally modified foods say they are safe and can boost harvests even in bad conditions by protecting against pests, weeds and drought . This, they argue will be essential to meeting the needs of a booming population in decades to come and avoiding starvation . 

          However, Doug Gurian - Sherman, senior scientist for the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group, said genetic engineering for insect resistance has provided only a modest increase in yields since the 1990s and drought-resistant strains have only modestly reduced losses from drought. 

       Moreover, he said conventional crossbreeding or cross - pollinating of different varieties for desirable traits, along with improved farming, is getting better results, boosting yields at a lower cost . In fact, much of the food Americans eat has been genetically modified by those conventional methods over thousands of years, before genetic engineering came into practice . 

       Overall genetic engineering does not get nearly the bang for the buck as conventional breeding and improve agricultural 

[ 判断题 ] Para . 2 mentions that insect-resistant genetically modified food has only showed a fairly small increase in production.