As the world population continues to grow faster the demand for the basic necessities of food, water, and shelter are on the rise.  Today in our global interconnected society, food production and distribution is facing not only growing demand but also challenges caused by modern farming techniques.  Modernization of the farming industry has help farmers grow crops more efficiently, however, there are some significant drawbacks that could negatively affect society. Challenges that face the farming industry include dwindling crop diversity, monoculture farming, and over dependency of chemicals.    

             In the United States and around the world the genetic diversity of commercial crops has dropped in an alarming rate.  The race to produce more food for the world?s growing population has led to the incredible decline of variety in food crops.  This poses a great threat to the global food supply as a single disease or pest can damage and destroy crops that are now grown on farms that practice industrial scale monoculture.  An example of the devastating effects of reduction of genetic diversity was the Irish potato famine of the mid-eighteen hundreds that was caused by potato blight (Phytophthora infestans).  Genetic diversity prevents such disasters as different varieties of crops can slow the spread of both diseases and pests. 

                           Unfortunately, in the present United States it is estimated that ninety percent of all the crops grown in the past one hundred are no longer commercial grown or stored.  This means that one ten percent of historically produced crops support the population and export markets.  Additionally, initiatives such as the Rockerfeller Foundations Green Revolution and the creation of genetically modified crops with higher yields have now caused the global genetic crop diversity to drop.  This globalization of farming has in many instances eliminated hundreds if not thousands of plant varieties that potentially could threaten the global food supply.  Governments, scientists, farmer and companies need to work together to create a larger pool of genetically diverse crops in order to protect a possible global famine.