In Uganda, a country in which 82 percent of the populace is involved in agricultural production, 14 percent percent of civilians are underweight. In the United States, a nation that uses GMOs, as well as more effective farming techniques, less than 2 percent of the adult population is underweight, and less than 2 percent of the population lives on farms. Malnourishment is, in large part, due to the poverty in countries such as Uganda, but that is just an offshoot of the more important issue of the inaccessibility of nutritious food. Ahead of a Senate hearing on GMOs next Wednesday, it is clear that the use of GMOs should be embraced.

In areas where the ability to consume food is dependent on the populace’s ability to grow it to grow it, higher proportions of people go hungry. This method of subsistence farming is especially susceptible to nature as a single disaster has the potential to wipe out the livelihood and food sources for entire families or villages.

In Uganda, 75 percent of farmers grow bananas for a living. Agriculture is worth 23 percent of their economy. From 2001 to 2004, banana wilt cut the banana crop yield in half across Uganda. In response to this, the Uganda National Agricultural Research Organization created a banana crop that resists the banana wilt, and wants to give it away for free. The ability of GMOs to affect change is real and should not be ignored.

There are few solutions to the world hunger crisis, and none of them are as focused as they need to be. The idea of world hunger is shunted to the back of our minds, condemned to an existence firmly rooted in jokes about throwing away food or clickbait photos. We refuse to address an issue that plagues many millions of people, and instead focus on our own food being organic and GMO free. In reality, GMOs have the potential to save lives, keep children in a healthy weight range and promote more balanced diets among societies where the majority of food grown is a single crop.

One of the main arguments against the usage of GMOs is that they aren’t as healthful or nutritious as organic food, despite advertisement that foods engineered to be hardier will still provide nutrition. A famous example is golden rice, a genetically modified version of rice that is resistant to crop failure but requires larger amounts of consumption to provide the same benefits as normal rice.

However ineffective golden rice may be, it is a strong step in the right direction. With more research and funding, genetically modified foods are the answer to hunger. While it is true that there is enough food and areas to produce food in the world, the simple fact is that they’re not accessible enough. GMOs provide less expensive food to people who need it, as well as opportunities to diversify and grow hardier crops in more difficult climates. Letting the opportunity to feed more people go to waste is a mistake that we, and those we claim to wish to aid, cannot afford.

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Email Patrick Seaman at [email protected].