Worldviews shaping beliefs about global population and food capacity

¶ … overpopulation is one of the factors causing global food crises (Sample 2007). Two potentially conflicting solutions are being proposed to address the problem of population growth. One solution is to increase global food production using agricultural technologies including the genetic modification of plants. Another solution is to curb population growth by encouraging the education of women worldwide and increasing child survival rates. While the former solution may seem attractive as well as profitable, it is not a panacea. In fact, increasing food production using technologies could potentially have devastating effects on people and the environment, which would worsen and not solve humanitarian crises. Reducing population growth is the only valid long-term solution because overpopulation is a symptom of other social, political, and economic issues too.

Worldviews that support the use of technology to increase food production may be rooted in religious beliefs such as "be fruitful and multiply." More likely, the worldview that supports agricultural technologies to intervene in the global food crisis is capitalism. Agro-business and biotechnology stand a lot to gain from patenting seeds and controlling the chemicals farmers put on their crops. While educating farmers to improve yields is necessary, introducing genetic modification and toxic chemicals into the soil is unnecessary and likely to be harmful in the long run.