Producing food is terrible for the environment. According to the online scientific publication Our World in Data, agriculture is responsible for a quarter of the carbon emissions in the atmosphere and the vast majority of world’s biodiversity losses.

“We’ve come to understand that using more land for agriculture is the biggest sin with respect to climate change and biodiversity. This means we need to produce food on less land so we can protect nature,” said Matin Qaim, a specialist in food economics.

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“One strand says we need dietary changes to make consumption more sustainable. That means less waste, less meat. The other strand argues we need better technologies to create more environmentally friendly methods of agriculture,” he told DW.

Qaim thinks both approaches are necessary. For one, we need to change the way food is produced — in particular, reducing human consumption of proteins and nutrients from animal sources. But it’s not enough. Like many experts, he thinks gene technologies are a crucial part of the strategy for a sustainable food system.

“Everyone wants to produce more food from less area and with less chemical pesticides, and with less fertilizer. If you’re able to [use gene technologies to] develop plants that are more tolerant and more resistant, it’s a good thing,” said Qaim.

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