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“ said Robert Zeigler, director of the International Rice Research Institute. 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.

Worldwide cultivation of bioengineered crops has expanded by over 10 percent a year for a decade, although by 2007 it still had reached only 282 million acres, an area about the size of Cuba, in 22 countries.

European countries face growing pressure, under World Trade Organization rules, to open their markets to GM products. Many among the EU's 27 member nations remain wary and, backed by consumers opposed to what some call "Franken-foods," are fighting to keep genetically altered crops out of their fields and supermarkets.

Overall, it seems best to see genetic engineering as just one of many strategies, including irrigation and soil improvements and better farm management, needed to increase productivity to ensure future generations will have enough to eat.