Rethinking Agriculture

Forget the 2008 food crisis. It is merely a distribution problem. The real tragedy is yet to come. Between nine and ten billion people will inhabit the world in less than 50 years, and they will have to nurture themselves from an increasingly exhausted planet. Global warming will have devastating effects on the soil’s ability to yield, the fight for fresh water will increase, less and less land will remain arable and biodiversity is dwindling at a rapid pace.

The results in the IAASTD report are not what the powerful want to hear.

This scenario is both bleak and frightening, and unfortunately not contested. What is disputed is how humanity can best overcome these challenges. Large-scale, industrialised farming, within a framework of massive international trade, has been the prevailing choice in most government and industrial circles, while farmer’s and development NGOs claim that the scaling down and localisation of agriculture is a more environmental- and human-friendly solution.

A unique process
On 15 April, it seems the 400 scientists in the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) joined the camp of the non-governmental and civil society organisations (NGO/CSO). After almost four years of assessing the relations between agriculture, poverty and the environment the conclusions of the UN report can be summed up as follows:

EMPTY FOOD BASKET| The UN report International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) states that agriculture is not just a provider of food and fodder, but also of social security and ecosystem services, and contributes to landscape value. It is necessary to take these aspects into account to create sustainable agricurtural prectices that feed the whole world. Photo / Ben Owen-Browne

1) Local ownership leads to safer agriculture
2) agro-ecological solutions are better than large-scale industrial farming
3) genetically modified crops have their place, but their potential contribution has been exaggerated
4) the present international trade regime is not helping sustainable development.

“The results in the IAASTD report are not what the powerful want to hear, but they are not easy to dismiss. The conclusions are scientifically validated assessments of a number of issues and the report provides an incontrovertible evidence base,” says Patrick Mulvany from Practical Action, a British CSO. He has followed the process closely from the very beginning and describes it as “unique” in the willingness and ability to combine and respect different scientific viewpoints and positions. Practical Action was one of six CSOs in the committee that governed the IAASTD.

World Bank and NGOs

It is not every day a World Bank-initiated process is supported by radical NGOs and CSOs, and the IAASTD process needn’t have been this inclusive. It started in 2000 when a group of biotech companies asked the World Bank to recommend genetically modified crops (GM crops) for developing countries. The World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations initiated a global consultative process to determine whether an international assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology (AKST) was needed.
After a series of consultations, it was decided in 2004 to embark on an international assessment of how AKST can assist in reducing hunger and poverty, improve rural livelihoods and facilitate environmentally, socially and economically sustainable development.

To secure representation from different sectors and regions of the world, it was decided that the steering body – known as the Bureau – should consist of 30 government and 30 civil society representatives. The Bureau then selected 400 experts – both natural and social scientists – to do the actual assessment.

The experts were left to work in their own professional capacities. In addition, several individuals and institutions were called upon to provide a thorough peer review process. “The solid scientific process behind the work makes the findings difficult to dismiss. The report has become a rich evidence base of knowledge that will be hard for policy makers to contest,” says Patrick Mulvany.

Going against the grain
Not all stakeholders are as supportive as Patrick Mulvany and Practical Action are about the findings. When the assessment was approved in Johannesburg on 15 April, Australia, Canada and the United States declined to give their approval to the final report.

One of the more controversial statements in the report is the relatively insignificant role it attributes to modern biotechnology when it comes to feeding the poor on a large scale. “Assessment of modern biotechnology is lagging behind development; information can be anecdotal and contradictory, and uncertainty on benefits and harms is unavoidable,” said the report.

It’s disappointing that a project with so much potential has fallen so short of its goals.

The concern that the Assessment would not promote their products led the GM giants Monsanto (a world-leader in GM seeds) and Syngenta (pesticides and GM seeds) to withdraw from the IAASTD Bureau in January, even though the two had been sponsoring the IAASTD process. “With all the benefits farmers have enjoyed in developed countries from plant sciences in the last several decades, it would seem only logical to consider transferring these proven technologies to resource-poor farmers. It’s disappointing that a project with so much potential has fallen so short of its goals and will not be helpful to policy makers”, said Howard Minigh, president and CEO of CropLife International in a press release on the day of the IAASTD report launch. CropLife is a global federation representing the agriculture industry, including Monsanto and Syngenta.

Security first
Jan Husby, senior adviser at the Norwegian institute of Gene Ecology (GENØK) in Tromsø, Norway, is not so sure that GM crops are what poor farmers need. “Some GM crops are in fact harmful. They have been approved for commercial use some 10-20 years before they should have been. Like the IAASTD, at GENØK we are not against all forms of genetic technology, but safety has to come before commercial exploitation. In this, we stand fully behind the report.”

Husby does not exclude the potential that GM technology may in the future help in the fight against the effects of global climate change, which will render arable lands both dryer in some regions and wetter in others. But GM crops should not be seen as a quick fix. Husby worries that GM seeds are used too easily and uncritically in developing countries, often as food aid. This is also a strategy to open new markets for the less than ten companies that control the trade in GM seeds and pesticides. Such innovation can, he believes, prove fatal to local economies.

“One example is South Africa where GM seeds have been given to smallholder farmers and can thus be mixed with local varieties. These seeds are not sterile and will yield for years, making it almost impossible to control which crops are genetically modified and which are not. There is a risk that this in the future will harm South African exports to countries with a strict policy against accepting GM products, like in the EU and in several of South Africa’s neighbours. This may also violate international treaties, like the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety that regulates the handling, use, export and import of GM organisms,” he says.

Little attention
The world is going through a crisis in food prices that has already stirred riots in more than 33 countries. 850 million people do not have enough to eat.

From this perspective one would think that the timing of the IAASTD report would attract immediate attention from global decision makers. This has not happened. The IAASTD has frequently been compared to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but even if almost 60 governments have endorsed the IAASTD document, it has not had any of the impact that the IPCC had on the international climate debate.

One reason may be that the IAASTD is not prescriptive in its advice to decision makers – another that signing the document is not a binding commitment. Christian Anton Smedshaug, adviser to the Norwegian Farmers Association, also fears that the real controversies have been overshadowed by the focus on GM crops.

Cheap food may never return.

“The sensitive part of the report is the claim for national food sovereignty, the right to trade protection and the right to localised food production. It is easy to agree that GM crops can be dangerous, that sterile seeds are a problem, that infrastructure and communication needs improvement and that sustainable ecosystems should be protected. What is not easy is what kind of political action needs to be taken. Issues like land reform, ownership and distribution never fail to create conflict,” he says.

More teeth
Smedshaug argues that the report might have had more teeth if the process had been less preoccupied with creating consensus. “But it is important to recognise that the Anglo-Saxon countries in general disagree with key policy prescriptions,” he underlines.

“The IAASTD report recommends the protection of local markets, securing borders and the provision of state support, but it is not very explicit on what is required to reach the goals. It is understandable, in the sense that when you challenge the belief in the market there will never be consensus,” Smedshaug says. Still, he believes that the report is much better than the World Development report on agriculture which the World Bank released last year and calls it a milestone on the road to a just international trade regime.
“Agricultural production needs a 75 per cent increase before 2050 to feed the world’s growing population. It is important that people understand the dimensions of this estimate. In my view, politics needs to adjust to the natural conditions and capacities in a country or region. Cheap food may never return.”

Read the IAASTD report: www.agassessment.org

Anne Hege Simonsen is an associate professor at the Oslo University College, Department of Journalism, as well as an author and a journalist.