Kolkata, July 30:

Over 850 million people across the world will not be able to get a square meal by 2025 due to food shortage, but it can be tackled at least partially through genetic engineering, says American agricultural expert Bruce M Chassy.

The assistant dean (office of research) of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois said: “By 2025, there will be a shortage of 400 billion tonnes of cereal grains.”

Chassy does not think using genetically engineered seeds is at all complex for farmers.

“Genetic farming is the easiest way to cultivate crops. These seeds are insect resistant, so there is no need to use huge amounts of pesticides.”

He also said that they had experimented in 22 countries like Australia, US, Japan, Korea and Taiwan and that of the 300 million farmers using biotechnology, 10 million are from the world’s developing countries.