"Goodbye Cheeseburger" by Hannah H.

Right now, the world population is at 7.6 billion, and the U.N. projects by 2100 the world to reach a staggering 11.2 billion. With the rapid growth in population, many experts are warning that our current agricultural practices will not sustain our planet. "We're not talking about the future. We're talking about right now," says Stefan Janson who works as a plant researcher in Sweden. Many are asking what can we do to solve this issue? What is going to have to change?

Today people want cheap fast food, but with the way our companies are using up food reserves, (McDonald’s) we can’t expect to continue this process. Just one ounce of beef requires more than 100 gallons of water. The factories and farms that the cows go through emit large amounts of carbon dioxide which is a key greenhouse gas and an estimated 20% of animal protein from the entire world is lost due to illnesses and bacteria growth. There have been some improvements in the search for something that will preserve our fragile ecosystem. Many options are still being tested, but one new trend is gene editing by CRISPR technology. CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. The gene editing either adds, removes, alters or replaces certain parts of a genome with other genetic materials. The specific material being used is called Cas9 which works with proteins. Cas9 was originally taken from samples of bacteria and is modified to remember viruses, so when the sample is in the presence of a virus, it fights it off instead of allowing it to take over. This process is making crops cheaper, more reliable, and less expensive. Among other foods being edited corn, wheat, and soy are the main three. Neal Gutterson, the vice president of research and development at DuPont Pioneer, has said in a press release that the Cas9 wheat will soon be produced in soups and salad dressings. Other advancements include cows with no horns, pigs with less harmful fat, and a bacteria that prevent tuberculosis. All of these things sound great, but will it hold out in the long run? Other places are working with “meatless meat” to solve the issue. Companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible foods use pea proteins to make burgers. Although this sounds like the perfect solution, these companies will soon be facing the same problems as every other farmer in the world. Climate change and the rapidly growing population added together makes looking at the future of agriculture harder every day. “Agriculture must transform over the next 30 years in order for us to avoid mass famine," said Charlotte Lusty, who helps manage a non-profit called the Crop Trust. Even though it seems CRISPR is a viable solution to the problem, it is not long term. Things in the world of agriculture need to change quickly before the human race does more harm than good. In the words of the great Jared Diamond, “Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny.” If the future generations value cheeseburgers, they will act instead of watching on the sidelines like so many before them.

Works Cited

“Amid GMO Strife, Food Industry Vies For Public Trust In CRISPR Technology.” The Salt,

www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/10/25/559867742/amid-gmo-strife-food-industry-vies-for-public-trust-in-crispr-technology.

Brodwin, Erin. “Your Burger Habit Could Be under Threat.” Business Insider, 20 Jan. 2018,

flipboard.com/@flipboard/-your-burger-habit-could-be-under-threat/f-e81237dad0%2Fbusinessinsider.com.

Lufkin, Bryan. “Capital - How Can a Fast Food Chain Ever Make Money from a $1

Burger?”BBC, BBC, 23 Feb. 2018, www.bbc.com/capital/story/20180222-how-can-a-fast-food-chain-ever-make-money-from-a-1-burger.

“What Are Genome Editing and CRISPR-Cas9? - Genetics Home Reference.” U.S. National

Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health,

ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/genomicresearch/genomeediting.