Haiti’s poor are resorting to eating “mud cookies” — made of dirt, salt, and shortening – for survival.

While sitting in my baby’s future nursery, compulsively folding and refolding baby clothes in a final fit of third trimester nesting, I think to myself, “How do people do this without help?”

My husband and I have been very blessed. We have been showered with gifts, hand-me-downs and baby furniture to the point that this nursery is overflowing! But while folding and refolding these baby clothes, I can’t help but feel a little guilty. Hanging on the wall in my living room is a picture of a little girl who is 12 years old, and looks like she’s eight. She’s holding a small bag of cheese curls and is in a pretty white dress. Her eyes are soft and gentle, but her face looks old. This little girl is Edelande, whom my husband and I met while working with Give Us Hope Mission in Haiti. Seeing her, I think of another woman we met in Haiti, who was passing out mud cookies to her children to stave off the hunger pains until they could afford food. I think about another mother we met on a later trip who, with face pressed to the ground, cried out on the top of a hill because her newborn baby was sick and she didn’t know what to do to help her. As I sat amongst all of the beautiful gift wrap and folded baby clothes, my heart couldn’t help but break for my Haitian friends who would not know how to feed their children that night.

When I’m not compulsively nesting, I teach agriculture at a local high school. Teaching teenagers is like climbing on a roller coaster each day. You never quite know what to expect! In my class, we cover nearly every subject you can imagine: animal science, crop production, business, anatomy and physiology, communications, marketing and the list goes on. It is one of the most diverse and satisfying subjects I have ever taught. The kids love it, too.

When covering such diverse subject matter, I often get the strangest questions: “Does chocolate milk come from brown cows? Did you know goats discovered coffee beans? Do chickens have teeth?”

I also get serious questions, especially when we cover world hunger and I talk about my experiences in Haiti.

“Well, if they are hungry, why don’t they just get a job and make more money?”

“Why can’t they just grow something to eat?”

“They live on an island — can’t they just eat a coconut?”

What these students (and many middle and upper class Americans) don’t realize is that often times the citizens of third world countries aren’t unwilling to work or farm, but the lack of infrastructure and agriculture investment restrict what they are able to do.

Back to the photo of Edelande—after giving her the cheese curls as an after school snack, we were perplexed as to why she refused to eat them. Turns out, she was not the only one at home who was malnourished. She had a father, grandfather and several siblings who hadn’t eaten in days. One lunchbox-sized bag of cheese curls was going to become the first family meal they had eaten in many days.

On a later trip, we were able to visit with her family and discovered that her father was a farmer. Thinking we could offer agricultural advice, we went to his farm. Compared to American standards his farm is more like what we would call a backyard garden, but it was providing food that he could sell at market. We started talking to him about fertilizers, tillage and rotating crops when he stopped us and said, “I understand all of that, but I just can’t afford to do it. What I really need is good seed. If I don’t have good seed, how can I have a good crop?”

Farmers in developing countries face insurmountable odds: low soil fertility, drought, lack of infrastructure, inadequate tools, competition at market from donated relief foods, and lastly unimproved seeds.

Farmers in these countries continue the practice of saving seed, but often time do not have the ability to improve the seed through traditional crossbreeding. The lack of genetic diversity can be a limiting factor as they attempt to improve on what they have. This is where hybridized seed and seeds improved through genetic engineering can come into play. These agricultural products can be improved so that they resist drought, use water more efficiently or resist certain pests greatly reducing risk for the farmer.

Many people here in the states get very offended when the agriculture community talks about offering improved seeds to other countries. They cry foul about “forcing” improved seed on unsuspecting farmers. They howl about the freedom to choose and about perceived health threat — never mind that inadequate nutrition claims the lives of 3.1 million children each year (Source: Series on Maternal and Child Nutrition, The Lancet, 2013 ) and that GMO products like Golden Rice can reduce the number of deaths and illnesses related to deficiency diseases. Don’t worry about the fact that most in U.S. have enough disposable income to choose what they want to eat each day while many in developing countries are living off of less than $2 per day.

As an agriculturist, teacher and parent, I don’t understand this disconnect. I don’t understand how denying lifesaving technologies to those who need it most is the compassionate thing to do. I don’t understand the rampant use of advertising that goes on in the pseudoscience community to convince consumers and voters to not at least offer these technologies to underdeveloped countries.

But I will tell you what I do understand. I understand the heartfelt cry that came from that mother on that hilltop in Haiti who could not provide for her newborn. I understand the shame in that mother’s eyes as she passed out mud cookies to her children knowing full well that they would probably get parasites from eating them. I understand loving another person so much that you would share the only food you have to try to keep them healthy. I understand that love and heartache look like that and that this global fight on the ethics of improved seed is pretty black and white when death looms as a result of inaction on our part.