Thanks to Alistair Smith at Banana Link for forwarding another incisive piece by Devinder Sharma. IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE TODAY, PLEASE READ THIS.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has gone into overdrive over gene giant Syngenta's announcement of the mapping of the rice genome:
"ROME - The mapping of the rice genome announced by Syngenta AG and Myriad Genetics Inc is a vital tool for boosting yields and relieving world hunger, U.N. world food body officials said on Monday. Experts with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told Reuters the breakthrough was key to increasing the productivity and nutritional value of rice, a staple for more than half the world's people." (Reuters)
But Devinder Sharma offers some much needed realism, focusing not least on the FAO itself which continues "to hide behind the pronouncements of the genetic engineering industry" instead of getting to grips with "the stark realities that continue to impede agricultural development and growth." Sharma argues, "Genetic engineering... will in reality exacerbate the existing crisis confronting the agrarian sector in the rice-eating countries."
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Rice genome mapping
NO RESPITE FOR THE HUNGRY
By Devinder Sharma
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) is visibly excited. After all, the mapping of the rice genome announced by multinationals Syngenta AG and Myriad Genetics Inc. appears to be a vital tool for boosting yields and relieving world hunger. And for an international organisation, which is officially committed to elevating hunger and malnutrition, this is obviously a cause for cheer. FAO officials have been quoted as saying that the technological breakthrough "will provide us an additional tool to increase food production in the next 20 years as the population rises," adding, "food could become more affordable to the poor people who consume it." Laudable thoughts, indeed.And if wishes were horses, the FAO would certainly provide millions of hungry and acutely malnourished an easy ride. For an organisation, which has been using pop concerts and spends more time in strengthening the information technology highway for the poor and the needy, the Herculean task of ending world hunger certainly needs a magic bullet. At the 1996 World Food Summit at Rome, FAO had very conveniently deferred the monumental task of eradicating hunger, and that too by half, to the year 2015. In November 2001, when the food experts meet again for the "Rome plus Five" conference, I wouldn't be surprised if the FAO further pushes the deadline for adequately feeding half the growing number of the hungry, to the year 2025 ! FAO says that the world's rice-eating population is growing faster than rice output and that investment is urgently needed to teach poor families to boost rice yields. The growth rate of rice yields dropped to one per cent a year in the 1990s from around 2.5 per cent a year in the 1970s and 1980s. Before Syngenta's announcement, FAO had forecast that rice yields would grow by just one per cent a year over the next 20 years. These statistics, however, reveal less than what it conceals. There is certainly no cause for alarm. And by creating a false alarm, FAO is merely trying to seek more public investment, which in turn will ensure food security for its staffers. FAO has repeatedly told us that there are about 800 million people who go to bed hungry every night. A third of these acutely malnourished and hungry, an estimated 250 million, live in India. And if India alone were to launch an all-out attack to remove hunger much of the world's hunger problem would be resolved. On the other hand, in the South Asia region, the hunger situation is even worse than sub-Saharan Africa. Together, the seven nations of the South Asia region are inhabited by more than half the world's hungry population. It also remains a fact that the rice yields in the South Asian countries, including India, are amongst the lowest in the world. In India, for instance, if we were to exclude the rice productivity in Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the yields would hover around one tonne a hectare. In any case, even by including the higher yields in the green revolution belt, the rice productivity averages at about two tonnes. This is pathetically lower than the high rate of productivity, exceeding six to seven tonnes a hectare, in neighbouring China. So even without incorporating the 'cutting-edge' technology, as genetic engineering is profoundly called, there exists tremendous scope to multiply production (at least by three times) by simply improving the management of the crop farming systems. But can FAO tell us why should the farmers be asked to produce more? At the height of the paddy harvesting season last year, hundreds of thousands of farmers in the frontline agricultural states of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, in northwest India, had waited for three weeks before the government agencies were forced to purchase the excess stocks. For three weeks, farmers sat patiently over heaps of paddy in the grain markets. At least 25 farmers, unable to bear the economic burden that comes with crop cultivation, preferred to commit suicide by drinking pesticides. In Andhra Pradesh, in south India, there were no buyers for the five million tonnes paddy surplus. Even in the poverty-stricken belt of Bihar and Orissa, in north-central India, farmers waited endlessly for the buyers. Paddy procurement in India hardly got off the ground. Farmers' suicide is perhaps a reflection on the breakdown of institutional safety nets, which in the past have cushioned the impact of agrarian crisis. Farmers can no longer turn to banks and credit societies for loans and procurement support; the public distribution system no longer offers food supplies at substantially subsidised prices; and market intervention is only partial - a combination of frustrating circumstances. Andhra Pradesh has publicly asked farmers not to produce more paddy. In Punjab, the citadel of green revolution, farmers are being asked to shift from staple foods like wheat and paddy to cash crops. And yet, FAO wants farmers to produce more food. Isn't [there] something terribly wrong with the way the FAO blindly supports biotechnological breakthroughs, and in turn eagerly pushes farmers into a suicide trap?
It was during the peak of the paddy harvesting season in India that I had visited Indonesia to understand the rice farming systems in relation to food security. What shocked me was to learn that Indonesia too was faced with a similar crisis. While rice farmers waited for their produce to be bought, Indonesia was comfortablewith the import of still cheaper rice from Vietnam. The paradox of plenty is thus not only confined to India. Pakistan, Bangladesh and even Indonesia are overflowing with foodgrains. In fact, Bangladesh, a chronically food-deficit country, had announced embargo on rice imports a couple of years back.
All these countries are, however, waiting for another impending disaster -- what will happen to the very survival of the farming communities when cheaper foodgrain imports under the WTO have to be allowed? Rice genome mapping cannot address the real issues of access and distribution that results in hunger. Genetic engineering, and more through cosmetic pills of Vitamin A-enriched rice and herbicide-tolerant plants, will in reality exacerbate the existing crisis confronting the agrarian sector in the rice-eating countries. FAO cannot continue to hide behind the pronouncements of the genetic engineering industry. It has to embark upon a fact-finding mission to bring out the stark realities that continue to impede agricultural development and growth. But then, it may be too much of an expectation considering that the monolithic organisation is buried under the weight of a highly inefficient army of country heads and managers.
(Devinder Sharma is a food and trade policy analyst) ... Mailing address: 96-A, Gautam Nagar, New Delhi-110 049 (Tel: 656 2326)