Second, the argument about GMO (or any other high-tech way to increase farming yields) being a 'solution' to food supply shortages is thrown around a lot without any evidence.. nor, as far as I can see, any actual basis in fact.

The drive to increase yields is a drive to increase profit / hectare, which has only resulted in actually driving other farmers out of the business which reduces food production stability, and ultimately overall yield. In every objective measure, this process also produces inferior product.

Monsanto has been profiting from the large-scale destruction of many decades of careful seed adaptation in regional areas. They have driven seed sellers and savers out of business in order to monopolise the markets. They sue / threaten / cajole farmers into using their product or effectively run them out of business.

Third, if I spent billions creating a piece of software whose sole purpose was to replicate its source code and upload it randomly to surrounding networks (along with some by-product) and did this by only changing a couple of lines in an existing piece of open source code, so that no one could really tell the difference... and got pissed that people were using that code. Well, I would just be a bit of a dick now, wouldn't I.

Spending more money on something does not give you any more rights, just more risk.