As starvation looms, it's time to take GM seriously

As front pages go, the cover of Nature is scarcely a stunner. It depicts two rows of trees facing each other across the page. Those trees, bearing papayas, are growing in a Hawaiian plantation and the difference between the two rows has critical importance to the world's mounting food crisis.

It transpires that the stunted trees on the right, each bearing only a handful of fruit, are victims of papaya ringspot virus, a disease that devastates yields and is endemic in Hawaii. By contrast, the papaya trees in the other row, on the left, are healthy and disease-free, because they have been genetically modified (GM) to resist ringspot.

As a demonstration of the potential of modern plant technology, the image speaks volumes. Transgenic crops may be disparaged and dug up every time scientists grow them as part of their trials in Britain, but as Nature's cover shows, the technology seems ripe to help feed a planet whose population will rise from 6.5 billion people, many of them already hungry, to around 9 billion by 2040.