2019-2020同步外研英语选修九新突破讲义：Module+2+Section+1　Reading+【Introduction++Reading+and+Vocabulary（1）】和答案.docVIP

PAGE Currently there are some 20,000 chemicals in use, but the scientists only have detailed information on around 1,000 of them.To see the advantages of GM food you have only to consider the recent press revelation that the average lettuce receives eleven pesticide applications before it reaches the supermarket shelf.Im sure chemicals and their roles in disease will become a big issue in the next century as the population of the developed world worries increasingly about its health. The reason GM food will not go away is that we need a three-fold increase in food production by the year 2050 to keep pace with the worlds predicted population growth to ten or eleven billion.Its not just a question of more mouths to feed either.What is often forgotten is that all these extra people will take up space, reducing the overall land available for agriculture. The world has 800 million hungry people.Until now, food supplies have been increased by improved varieties, pesticides and artificial fertilizers: the green revolution.Now were on the edge of a new revolution: a genetic one. It may well be that in the long term it is the developing world that benefits most from GM foods.Its true that for the next ten years or so GM crop may be too expensive.But the lesson of personal computers is applicable here—once the technology has been developed for money-spinning crops, like maize, soybeans and cotton, it will filter down and become affordable for all.This doesnt mean, unfortunately, that famines will disappear, but severity and duration will be helped by an improved ability to produce and distribute food. As we move into this new era of agriculture were embarking on an experiment.But remember that the world has seen a number of experiments before.We have been refining species of wheat for several thousand years.Genetic engineers like me are not doing anything as dramatic as making a cabbage into a cauliflower—as has been done by plant breeders in the past.Were simply tapping in