I think that may be our "agriculture salvation." The way we do things now is extremely inefficient, ineffective, and it involves tons wasted food and resources with tons more that could be cut out if we depended more upon local farmers. And of course we also need to learn what healthy amounts of meat consumption are, and significantly cut down on that. We also need to stop wasting so much food on products that are basically made to waste (cases of food at grocery stores, mountains of still good food at fast food and restaurants being thrown out, and we could probably spare a few less holidays of gluttony). McDonalds may be convenient, but really we would be better off without, as would the Earth.
I agree, and I see the fears of GMOs on par with the fears of vaccines. And really with bad results too boot. We don't have to involve chemicals or bioengineering to produce "genetically modified organisms," and with our brains alone we have made wonderful progress in diversifying and enhancing our food supply. And in some places, even with bioengineering, it may be the only option we are left with to address hunger and starvation in impoverished nations while addressing our species exponentially growing need for food. Studies are needed still so we can find out more, but I do believe it will be GMO substances that will ultimately end the human desire and want for meat from living animals.
There are also other techniques where advances in molecular biology can be applied to agriculture that do not involve any genetic engineering. Molecular breeding combines the techniques developed in molecular biology with traditional breeding to produce new varieties of plants and animals that have desirable traits with fewer undesirable traits. Techniques like marker assisted selection and mapping are observational and not used to move genes around, but still allow for increased efficiency in breeding.
There are a few companies doing some interesting and very low impact work on products to increase the shelf-life of foods. Edible coatings that can be easily applied, cut down on waste and enhance the quality of food in places where modern storage technology is limited or unavailable.
There is a lot of cool work taking place out there and lots of small stakeholders innovating in ways that big companies do not always have to ability to maneuver in.
Genetic engineering is going to remain an important tool, but regulation and compliance are going to have to follow it hand in hand. Currently, regulation of genetically engineered production falls under the USDA, FDA and the EPA. While not perfect, having that level of scrutiny seems to be effective in driving a high level of compliance.
About 20 years ago, survey after survey indicated that most consumers were completely unaware of what was in the food they were eating. One question asked if DNA should be allowed in food and there was a significant number of people that thought it should be kept out and regulated. So an unintended benefit of genetic engineering was that many more people now pay attention to what is in the food they are eating.
Food security and production under climate change are going remain big challenges. The need for innovation from government, universities, large companies and smaller stakeholders under sound and reasonable regulation is critical to maintaining and improving that.
There are a lot of arguments over organic production and clearly, completely organic production cannot take place on a scale that would be sufficient to provide for global demand, but the market for it continues to grow based on consumer demand. While there is no substantial difference in organic food and food from conventional production, there is generally lower inputs in organic and reductions in chemical residues that would have health benefits and it is probably more important on local levels by adding a choice to those markets.
In thinking about my answers here, I realize that I have been out of touch with this subject for far too long. It is very interesting and one of the more important issues of our day. From perusing Google, it looks like I need to do some catch up.