Points of View
Agriculture in 2020
In less than a generation, agriculture and rural livelihoods will be transformed by significant changes. Populations will continue to grow; the movement of people to urban centres will accelerate unless off-farm rural employment is made available; climate change will increasingly bring uncertainty; water availability will become more precarious; the impact of HIV-AIDS will affect labour-availability and management in agriculture; new technologies, including (perhaps especially) genetic modification, will play an increasing role in postponing crop failure and food shortage.
This edition of Points of View largely reflects the opinions of an international gathering of scientists and non-scientists invited by the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK in April to speak and participate in a meeting: Global Agriculture 2020. The John Innes Centre is internationally renowned for its work on the genetic modification of plants and debate on this aspect of agriculture predominated; however, it was linked to population growth, climate change and the need and potential for developing agro industries.
The final two quotations are from Redesigning Life, featured in 'In Print'.
For a number of reasons agriculture world-wide faces huge challenges in the coming decades. They are pretty well known: two to three billion additional mouths to feed, shrinking supply of prime agricultural land, big issues about water availability and quality. And of course not only the issue of producing enough but also producing enough food on a sustainable basis. In addition, it's clear that agricultural economics are difficult at the moment. And so we wanted to look at possibilities for diversification of land use in terms of growing non-food crops for novel industrial purposes. So those are the sorts of challenges.
Dr Chris Lamb, Director, John Innes Centre, Norwich
I think we have a very big challenge in front of us. We have to produce 50% more food by 2020. So this is a big challenge. What I personally feel is that we can handle it provided there's enough support of agriculture, and we are allowed to use the latest technologies. I am very concerned about the anti-science people who discourage the research on genetic modification, I think that's very good technology and we should be allowed to use it. I think it's very important to have proper controls and proper regulatory agencies so that the food safety aspects are examined and tested before any genetic material goes out.
I think the very important thrust is to increase more food but at the same time the food should be more nutritious. So we are trying to incorporate the micro-nutrients like iron which is deficient in rice, and vitamin A, which does not occur in rice. So if we can produce these rice varieties with higher levels of iron and zinc and the presence of vitamins that will solve a lot of the nutritional problems.
Dr. G Khush, IRRI
Remember that in Africa we are in a situation whereby the population increase is about 3.5% and the food production is about 2.5%. The land is decreasing. We have got low technology applications and these are I think some of the issues that we would like to address and see what technologies can be of use, or what can the developing countries come up with. Let's make the correct choice of the technologies, let's make the correct applications and strengthen the necessary infrastructure
The Green Revolution came, Africa was left behind for reasons that I can't really know. And now we cannot afford to be left behind. We must go along with the rest. Let us plan as we go. Technology should not be divided. It should be technology for everybody and let the people decide. Now if we go along and find that this is technology that can be useful let's adopt it and that's my view.
Dr. Samuel Wakhusama , ISAAA, Kenya
The picture of climate change for Africa is mixed. There are indications that weather may become drier in Africa north of the equator and south of the equator. But in equatorial regions it may become more moist. So in a sense the already humid equatorial parts of Africa may get wetter with intensified rainfall. And the drier parts of Africa, from let's say West Africa through Ethiopia northwards and southern Africa may both become drier. So there are different strategies that we need to think of in those two regions.
For example, we need to think of increasing our efficiency in the use of water in areas where climate may become drier. Now that is not necessarily a bad thing because we are wanting increased water use efficiency now. So, if we can develop crops that use water more efficiently, if we can develop management techniques that irrigate at the plant level or the row level rather than the field level as it were, then this helps serve agriculture in drought prone areas now, and at the same time may, what I call drought proof agriculture: increase the resilience of agriculture against drought in the future. So we are serving the near term and the longer term at the same time.
And for the more humid areas, the problem is there of course dealing with increased run off. Possible increases in soil erosion and the possible increase of leaching of materials deeper into the soil and away from the plant layer. And again there are techniques that are well developed in agriculture coping with excess of moisture particularly in equatorial areas.
There are techniques, such as plant breeding in a traditional sense or the use of more modern techniques in plant development, genetic modification and so on which will enable us to breed for climate change. And there's no reason at all why we could not orient plant breeding which has a lot of experience and of course is working now to increase yield and to increase nutritional content of yield, to add the goal of climate change to that plant breeding programme, to breed for climate change. There's no reason at all why through traditional and more modern techniques we can't breed for climate change in this way.
Prof. Martin Parry, Director of Jackson Environment Institute, University of East Anglia
My own personal view is that biotechnology is an option that we must explore like we would explore other technologies and other strategies and I firmly believe that we cannot close our door on that without understanding what it offers and how best to use biotechnology and how best to use other technologies. That's my own opinion.
Rajul Pandya-Lorch, IFPRI
I've heard a lot about the campaigns against genetic modification but it doesn't disturb me at all because, in a country like Uganda where we have acute shortage of food and very many people starving, this new approach promises to increase food in our country. I don't see a problem: the majority of Ugandans will support the approach to increase food in our country. So the campaigns in Europe don't threaten us at all.
Dr. Wilberforce Tushemeriehrewe , NARO, Uganda
Well I think that the genetics of plants are going to be one of the fundamentals for improving crop output, but I think the big question is, are those genetics going to be expressed as genetic modifications, transgenics or as hybrids? If you look at the transgenic market place now it's grown from nowhere in 1995 to a market with a value of about something like 4 to 5 billion US dollars now on the basis of traits that help farmers to grow their crops better. But the big promise of course is genetic modifications that alter the output of the crop in some way and bring more distinct benefits to consumers rather than just to agriculturists and horticulturists. And I think that will open up the market place for GM's.
If we look at countries like Brazil, we believe it is on the edge of accepting GMO's particularly for their 11 million hectare crop of soya beans that they grow and want to provide to world markets. Also countries like India where 60% of the population are still involved with agriculture, and seem to have a very high hunger for GM technologies, to help them to advance their technologies. And we believe that India will be another country within the next 5 years that accepts GM technologies for crops such as cotton and tobacco quite well.
Richard Leech, Wood Mackenzie, UK
I think the problem it seems to me with the way in which the biotech approach is focused at the moment is that it tends to be a focus which is concerned with continuing commodity production let's say, reinforcing monocultural systems, intensive production systems rather than what organic farming is trying to do which is to say, 'Hey look we really need to look at diversity within our cropping systems in order to provide all of the kinds of services that agriculture can supply'.
Having heard the forecasts for global climate change …these are suggesting that the relatively semi-arid areas in subtropical parts of the world are actually going to get drier and so there will be much greater stress on the agricultural system. Now if we think about a monocultural commodity approach does that mean that water has to be brought in, even more water, irrigation for irrigation schemes, water which is already a valuable commodity and it's going to be even more valuable and in scarce supply in the future. Organic systems which depend or which are based on a much wider range of diversity can utilise crops which introduce large amounts of organic matter into the soil. This is already proven to have positive effects in terms of allowing the soil to actually retain more moisture within the structure so that the need for irrigation is indeed less. Also with the diversified system which is adapted to the local conditions then of course you can concentrate on crops which flourish under those conditions. That is crops which don't necessarily need so much water anyway. And that may not be the case with the kinds of commodities which are in people's minds at the moment for export to the north.
Dr Martin Wolfe, Elm Farm Research Centre, UK
I think what tends to happen is that the whole debate on GMO has been polarised, but there is a middle ground. There is such a thing as appropriate technology for resource poor farmers which does not necessarily exclude GMO technology. And it is possible for public funded enterprise to access and develop this technology and make it available for the benefit of resource poor communities. So the point would be to produce a genetically engineered product within Africa for African systems.
Dr Ahmed Hassanali, Head, Behavioural and Chemical Ecology, International Centre of Insect Physiology and Chemical Ecology, Kenya
My dream is that we adopt biotechnology, we see it for what it is, and that is the beneficial effects of it, and that we take advantage of that. It's a technological boom that I think will change our agriculture. It's one approach. I'm not saying it's a panacea. It's one approach that I think could change a lot of our approach to increasing productivity, especially in terms of disease control, pest control and other value added aspects of it that we could consider in terms of micro nutrient deficiencies. This is an aspect that biotech could address.
Dr Idah Sithole-Niang, University of Zimbabwe
Can we improve a particular crop so it gets less disease? Can we make it less susceptible to depredation? Can we make it less likely to have fungal infection? The answer in general is, if we think what might be done, we can do it. We can find genes which give that particular crop protection whilst maintaining its palatability and safety for humans. Now, if we can do that, another thing we can do is increase shelf life. If we can do any of those then we are talking about increasing the amount of food available in rural areas.
The problem is that the big companies aren't interested in that because it doesn't necessarily provide them with any income. And their primary responsibility to their shareholders is to make a profit. They've got the genes. The public authorities could get the genes from non-commercial crops from these companies if we could get them to talk to each other. And through public money, aid money we could put these genes into the appropriate crops and provide them to improve food security in these small villages say. That is something that I feel very very strongly about because that's the only way we are going to get enough food to the right people in the right places using this technology. There are other ways, other technologies to use but this is the one that seems to me to be susceptible to real possibility.
Dr Julian Kinderlerer, University of Sheffield, Institute of Biotechnological Law and Ethics
I think this is an area where we must hasten slowly in recommending it for human consumption, until we are able to solve the problems which have been raised by the Medical Council of the United Kingdom, and many other global academies. They all raise important concerns, particularly in terms of food safety and environmental safety.
Therefore enormous, unusual opportunities [with genetic modification]are there, but how to use those opportunities carefully? And we should not put any evidence which says "There is a drawback here", under the carpet. Because you cannot play with human health and human well being. I am particularly confident that in the next five years we will have answers to most of these questions and we will have a kind of technology which is environmentally benign. That is why at this conference I recommended the organisation of a global network for integrated research on organic farming and genetic modification and enhancement.
Prof MS Swaminathan
Plant science is in a really golden age in terms of the insights we are getting into key traits like root growth, leaf development, disease resistance, pest resistance and so on. And we really do want to see this knowledge applied usefully both in the UK and Europe but also in developing country agriculture. Hopefully, in having a meeting like this with many different perspectives, we can find opportunities to build bridges that will enhance our ability to transfer knowledge from our science into useful agricultural development.
I think that we need to examine issues such as genetic diversity and moving away perhaps from monoculture in agricultural systems and there are some interesting ideas there that modern molecular biology can really help in assessing and also implementing.
Dr Chris Lamb, Director, John Innes Centre, Norwich
Monsanto, USAID and other organizations have already started distributing surplus biotechnology (non-critical techniques and knowledge) just as foreign aid programmes were used to distribute surplus US wheat in the 1950s and 1960s. As they did with 'Green Revolution' technologies, the Rockefeller and Ford foundations are financing the development of biotechnology expertise in the network of international agricultural research centres associated with the CGIAR system and in selected developing nations. But such technical 'aid', like the wheat in earlier years, will bind recipients more closely to an expanding global market for these technologies and to a commitment to a particular approach to the production of knowledge.
Jack Kloppenburg and Beth Burrows from Redesigning Life
We live in a world where hunger among the poor increases as agriculture becomes commercialised, even where yields improve. The Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s introduced higher-yielding varieties of staple food crops, new tilling methods and increased use of chemical inputs…Farming with fossil fuels, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and scientifically bred seeds has been subsidized and encouraged at the expense of peasant subsistence and local-market based agricultures. These successors of colonialism continue to convert the best land to export agriculture and ranching. They produce cattle and other livestock, grain for processing and animal feed, luxury foods such as coffee and chocolate, fruits for Northern markets, and so on.
Peasants formerly used this land to grow food, fibre, forage, building materials and medicines. They have been moved to marginal land, and have a harder time growing what they need. When they can't make it they end up as squatters on the edges of large cities, or they migrate to work for low wages on bigger farms. It is difficult to make enough money to buy the food that they only recently grew for themselves. The food they can buy is lower in nutrients; it is refined, high in fat, low in vitamins. In study after study of poor children before and after commercialization of agriculture in a region, researchers have found an increase in malnutrition at the very time that overall yields per acre have increased.
Martha L Crouch, from Redesigning Life
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