Zeng Yawen's outdoor laboratory in the terraced hills of southern China is a trove of genetic potential – rice that thrives in unusually cool temperatures, high altitudes or in dry soil; rice rich in calcium, vitamins or iron.
"See these plants? They can tolerate the cold," Zeng says as he walks through a checkerboard of test fields sown with different rice varieties on the outskirts of Kunming, capital of southwestern China's Yunnan province.
"We can extract the cold-tolerant gene from this plant and use it in a genetically manipulated variety to improve its cold tolerance," Zeng says.
In a mountainous place like Yunnan, and in many other parts of the developing world, such advantages can tip the balance between hunger and a decent living. And China is now ready to tip that scale in favor of genetically modified crops.
Surging costs, population growth, and drought and other setbacks linked to global climate change are pressuring world food supplies, while soaring prices on the street have triggered riots and raised the number of people going hungry to more than 923 million, according to U.N. estimates.
With food demand forecast to increase by half by 2030, the incentive to use genetic engineering to boost harvests and protect precious crops from insects and other damage has never been greater.
In Europe, Africa and Asia, governments that have resisted imports of genetically modified foods and banned growing such crops are loosening those restrictions. Meanwhile, they are pushing ahead faster with their own research, despite lingering questions over the safety of such technology.
"Influential voices around the world are calling for a re-examination of the GM debate," says C.S. Prakash, a professor of plant molecular genetics at Alabama's Tuskegee University. "Biotechnology provides such tools to help address food sustainability issues."
Genetic manipulation to insert desirable genes or accelerate changes traditionally achieved through crossbreeding can help make crops resistant to insects and disease or enable them to tolerate herbicides. Livestock similarly can be altered by inserting a gene from one animal into the DNA of another.
Many researchers believe such methods are essential for a second "green revolution," now that the gains from the first, in the mid-20th century, are tapering off.
Bioengineered crops are widely grown in Canada, Argentina and the U.S., where nearly all soybeans, most cotton and a growing proportion of corn are designed for tolerance to herbicides or resistance to insects. A virus-resistant GM variety of papaya is commercially grown in Hawaii and China.
Biotechnology is bound to play an important role in the agriculture of the future, Robert Zeigler, director of the International Rice Research Institute, said in an interview with The Associated Press at IRRI's headquarters south of Manila in the Philippines.
Such crops "bring tremendous power and advantages to producers and consumers," Zeigler said, noting the potential savings from reduced use of farm chemicals and of fuel for the tractors to spread them.
After delaying the long-expected commercialization of GM grains for years, China's leaders in July endorsed a 13-year, $2.9 billion program to promote use of genetically altered crops and livestock. Beijing is on the verge of releasing an insect-resistant rice variety, Zeigler said.