The fight over the future of food

● Backlash against GM crops complicates bid to feed world
● Resistance to science-based agriculture grows in U.S.
● Is a second Green Revolution needed, or even desirable?
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON/MILAN, (Reuters) – At first  glance, Giuseppe Oglio’s farm near Milan looks like it’s  suffering from neglect. Weeds run rampant amid the rice fields  and clover grows unchecked around his millet crop.

Oglio, a third generation farmer eschews modern farming  techniques — chemicals, fertilizers, heavy machinery — in  favour of a purely natural approach. It is not just ecological,  he says, but profitable, and he believes his system can be  replicated in starving regions of the globe.

Nearly 5,000 miles (8,000 km) away, in laboratories in St.  Louis, Missouri, hundreds of scientists at the world’s biggest  seed company, Monsanto, also want to feed the world, only their  tools of choice are laser beams and petri dishes.

Monsanto, a leader in agricultural biotechnology, spends  about $2 million a day on scientific research that aims to  improve on Mother Nature, and is positioning itself as a key  player in the fight against hunger.

The Italian farmer and the U.S. multinational represent  the two extremes in an increasingly acrimonious debate over the  future of food.

Everybody wants to end hunger, but just how to do so is a  divisive question that pits environmentalists against  anti-poverty campaigners, big business against consumers and  rich countries against poor.

The food fight takes place at a time when experts on both  sides agree on one thing — the number of empty bellies around  the world will only grow unless there is major intervention  now.

A combination of the food crisis and the global economic  downturn has catapulted the number of hungry people in the  world to more than 1 billion. The United Nations says world  food output must grow by 70 percent over the next four decades  to feed a projected extra 2.3 billion people by 2050.

International leaders are gathering in Rome next week for  the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s World Summit on  Food Security and will hear competing arguments over how best  to tackle the problem. One of the fiercest disputes will be  over the relative importance of science versus social and  economic reforms to empower small farmers to grow more with  existing technology.

“Listen to nature”
Much of Europe has moved away from an agricultural system  of small farms to mass commercial farming, but Italy still  retains a base of family farmers who produce everything from  olives to mozzarella cheese.

Oglio is one of them. A charismatic 40-year-old, he dropped  out of an agricultural school after growing disillusioned with  the farming methods being taught there. Today, he lets nature  run its course as he grows cereals and legumes on his small  family farm in Belcreda di Gambolo, about 20 miles (30 km)  southwest of Milan.

He does not use any chemical, or even natural fertilisers  or pesticides. He does not weed his fields. “All you need to do  is observe nature, listen to it, do what nature suggests and it  will take care of everything,” he said.

His fields, in a low-lying plain that has a long history of  growing rice used for risotto, replicate patterns found in  nature. For example, clover and millet grow together, feeding  each other with necessary minerals.

Oglio said his farm is eco-sustainable. He has slashed  operating costs by eliminating expensive commercial products  like herbicides and by reducing the use of agricultural  machinery to a minimum. Such cheap and low-maintenance farming  could be adopted in Africa and other regions hit by poverty and  hunger, he said.
“Natural farming will not save the world. But it can feed  poor families,” he said.
But it’s unlikely it can do so on the scale that most  experts believe is necessary. And therein lies the rub.  Affluent consumers may prefer the Oglios of the world to the  Monsantos, but their skittishness about high-tech agriculture  is making it more difficult to grapple with the mounting crisis  over the lack of food.

Learning from the past

The last time the world faced such dire predictions of  famine was before the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s,  when countries like India and China transformed their  agricultural systems to become self-sufficient in food. They  did so by harnessing plant-breeding technology to raise yields  on rice, wheat and other staple crops.
Through massive state investment in hybrid rice, China, the  world’s most populous country, raised its yields from two  tonnes per hectare in the 1960s to more than 10 tonnes per  hectare by 2004. Chinese scientists seek further gains — 13.5  tonnes per hectare by 2015, according to the International Food  Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), which cites China’s rice  program as one of the true success stories in agricultural  development in a study out this week (Nov. 12) called “Millions  Fed.”

20091111graphTo be sure, the Green Revolution had its downsides —  environmental damage, to name one. In India, for example, water  tables are drying up and the soil has been degraded by  pesticide and fertilisers. The movement also contributed to the  rise of big commercial farms at the expense of small holders,  fueling resentment from its early days at what critics see as  the “corporatisation” of food.

But millions of people were saved from starvation, and the  movement’s architect, Norman Borlaug, received the 1970 Nobel  Peace Prize.

With their populations soaring, however, India and China —  not to mention most of Africa — still face challenges,  especially as climate change exacerbates environmental problems  that have already slowed growth in food production.

IFPRI, part of a global network of agricultural research  centers, said last month lower yields due to climate change  would cut “calorie availability” for the average consumer in a  developing country in 2050 by 7 percent, compared with 2000.

Higher temperatures reduce crop yields while encouraging  pests and plant diseases. For almost all crops, South Asia  would experience the largest declines in yields. IFPRI said  rice output in the region would be 14 percent lower than if  there were no climate change.

“India sorely needs another Green Revolution,” said  Kushagra Nayan Bajaj, joint managing director of Bajaj  Hinduthan <BJHN.BO>, India’s top sugar producer, which is  importing raw sugar after a drought hit the domestic cane  crop.

But a second green revolution would face a strong  counterinsurgency, even in a place like India that benefited so  profoundly from the first one.

“The point is that chemicals destroy the sustainability of  productivity in the long run … Yes, a second green revolution  is indeed very essential — the very need of the hour. But it  should not be the same kind of green revolution that the first  was,” said P.C. Kesavan, a fellow at the M.S. Swaminathan  Research Foundation, set up by the father of India’s Green  Revolution.
Economists and scientists in India are demanding a raft of  policy initiatives, including allowing genetic engineering,  which its proponents argue does the same job as traditional  plant hybridization, only quicker and more efficiently.

India has so far allowed GM seeds only for cotton, which  has boosted productivity, but suggestions of allowing such  seeds for edible crops have always evoked strong protests.

Cradle of corn
It’s a similar story in Mexico, where Borlaug started his  pioneering research in the 1940s at the Cooperative Wheat  Research and Production Program. Mexico issued permits last  month for the first time for farmers to grow genetically  modified corn.

Considered by many the cradle of corn, Mexico is home to  more than 10,000 varieties, used to make the classic tortilla,  a staple of the Mexican diet. Corn was first planted in Mexico  as many as 9,000 years ago and the grain was adapted by Spanish  conquerors in the early 1500s and eventually spread to the rest  of the world.

Mexico faces the same dilemmas over GM corn as do many  developing countries — balancing consumer fears with the need  to grow more food.

“We see corn as our cultural heritage, our legacy. For us  it’s not just a question of food, but about conserving our  traditions,” said Celerino Tlacotempa, who works for an  organization of native Nahuatl farmers in the southern  mountains of Guerrero state.
“With genetically modified seeds we will lose our varieties  of colored corn. There will be no more purple corn, black corn,  white corn,” Tlacotempa said. “Above all, we will be condemned  to buy seeds from companies like Monsanto. It’s not  sustainable. It’s a real risk for the wellbeing of these  communities.”

At the same time, other Mexican farmers in the north of the  country have been cultivating GM seeds smuggled over the border  from the United States for some time, attracted by the crops’  greater resilience to drought and pests and higher yields.
Tomas Lumpkin, director of CIMMYT, the International Maize  and Wheat Improvement Center that Borlaug started in Mexico,  said the country now imports about half of the corn it  consumes. With climate change and other pressures, he said, it  was vital to raise production using all tools available.

“It is a much more complex and difficult world than Borlaug  faced, but we have much more powerful tools than he had, and we  need to start testing those and deploying those,” he said.

“GMOs are just another set of tools in the toolbox, but we  need to be able to use those tools,” Lumpkin said. “If we could  deploy those varieties so that the farmer in the developing  world has the same powerful seed as the farmer in Iowa, why  should they be handicapped?”

Rich consumers resist GM
Monsanto launched the world’s first genetically modified  crop in 1996 and GM crops are now grown in countries ranging  from Australia to South Africa, the Philippines and Brazil.

Up to 85 percent of the massive U.S. corn crop is  genetically engineered, as well as up 91 percent of soybeans  and 88 percent of cotton, according to U.S. data.
As ingrained as GM crops may seem, a backlash against the  technology appears to be growing.

Opposition to genetic modification of seeds has long been  strongest in Europe. The European Union severely restricts use  of GM seeds on its territory, as well as imports of products  containing GM-derived food. Individual countries including  Germany ban even GM seeds that are authorized, such as an  insect-resistant maize type, MON 810, developed by Monsanto.

Now consumer resistance to what British tabloids long ago  dubbed “Frankenfood” is taking root in the United States too.

With North America’s industrial farming system, consumers  who buy packaged goods from grocery stores are likely eating GM  products without even knowing it, according to environmental  group the Center for Food Safety. The group, which was involved  in a successful court battle to stop introduction of Monsanto’s  genetically engineered alfalfa seed, also contends that up to  70 percent of soda, soup, crackers and other processed goods  sold under major household brands are GM derived.

“There really is no human health analysis of GM crops,”  said William Freese, science policy analyst for the center.  “It’s a real result of the policy that our government has put  in place, which is basically a presumption of innocence.”

A banner issue for U.S. anti-GM crusaders is genetically  engineered growth hormones for dairy cows, known as rBGH.  Introduced in the United States in 1994, rBGH is a drug to  extend milk production after a cow gives birth. It was  developed by Monsanto but recently sold to Eli Lilly and Co.

Health Care Without Harm, a global coalition of hospitals  and other health groups, believes the drug is dangerous because  it increases the likelihood of infection in the cow’s udder,  which leads to greater antibiotic use in the animals. That  contributes to antibiotic-resistance in humans, they argue.

Other critics say it may be linked to cancer in humans,  despite U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals.

Proponents have won over a string of big names to reject  the drug, including the big yogurt makers Yoplait and Dannon,  and have also lobbied coffee chain Starbucks to oppose rBGH.

A Starbucks spokesman said the firm’s entire core dairy  supply comes from suppliers that do not use the hormone.

“Our core products, coffee and tea, are not genetically  modified,” the spokesman said in a statement. “We have no plans  to purchase coffee or tea that is derived from GM sources, now  or in the future.”

The industry notes that GM research is supported by a  number of august groups, including the Royal Society of Britain  and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

“IDEOLOGICAL WEDGE”
For those seeking to end global hunger, rather than just  satisfy rich consumers’ craving for cappuccino, Africa presents  the greatest challenges.

Monsanto, together with corporate rivals, is working with  poor countries and charitable groups such as the Bill and  Melinda Gates Foundation, set up by Microsoft founder and  philanthropist Bill Gates and his wife.

At the annual World Food Prize forum last month, Gates  warned that the fight to end hunger was being hurt by  environmentalists who insist that genetically modified crops  should not be used in Africa. He said it was vital to help  small farmers there boost production by all means, including GM  crops, fertilizer and chemicals.

“This global effort to help small farmers is endangered by  an ideological wedge that threatens to split the movement in  two,” Gates said at the forum for the prize, which was created  by Borlaug, who died in September at the age of 95.

“Some people insist on an ideal vision of the environment,”  Gates said. “They have tried to restrict the spread of  biotechnology into sub-Saharan Africa without regard to how  much hunger and poverty might be reduced by it.”

Rajul Pandya-Lorch, who has worked for the IFPRI thinktank  on food for 22 years, summed it up like this: “I’m a Kenyan. I  resent very much people telling us in Africa ‘OK, this  biotechnology is not good for you.’ Well, we have different  problems than you do, and if it helps us to solve a problem, we  should try it.”

Yet, even in Africa, there is suspicion of GM technology.  Many countries there, such as Uganda, Zambia and Tanzania, do  not allow GM seeds.

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, a  Kenya-based group set up in 2006 with support from the  Rockefeller Foundation and the Gates Foundation, targets its  programs specifically at small-scale farmers.

Three-quarters of the world’s poorest billion people live  in rural areas, dependent on farming for their livelihoods.

AGRA’s Program for Africa’s Seed Systems uses conventional  breeding to develop new varieties of maize, cassava, beans,  rice, sorghum, and other crops resistant to diseases and pests.  The goal is to develop and release more than 1,000 improved  crop varieties over the next 10 years.

“We’ve adopted a small grant mechanism that gets money out  to plant breeders on the ground, so that they can, over a  period of years, and selections and lots of consultations with  local farmers, and access to the world’s gene banks, come up  with something that’s truly novel, much higher yielding and  resistant to local diseases and with the taste and texture that  local people want,” said Joseph DeVries, director of PASS.

“To leap to the GM model at this stage, just seems like  it’s ignoring a lot of the things that make sense locally, that  people can do locally without it,” he said.

Kostas Stamoulis, director of the FAO’s Agricultural  Development Economics Division, said only a few food crops are  in wide use in genetically modified forms, and most are not  well adapted to the varied and often extreme environmental  conditions in sub-Saharan Africa.

Africa has eight or more staple crops that are grown in a  wide variety of climates and conditions, making it far more of  a challenge than in Asia, where single staple crops, such as  rice, are grown in relatively homogenous conditions over wide  areas. Stamoulis emphasized the need for all kinds of  technology, including traditional plant breeding.

He said there should be a balance between “people that, in  my view, make the extraordinarily dangerous proposition that  you can feed the world with organics, which is absolutely  crazy, and those who are fanatic about GMOs without looking at  the full balance of options.”

WHERE’S THE MONEY?
The FAO said last month the world needs to invest $83  billion a year in agriculture in developing countries to feed a  predicted population of 9.1 billion people in 2050.
To achieve that, both public and private investment on a  grand scale is needed, but the trend on the public side has  been discouraging. Official development assistance to  agriculture plunged 58 percent in real terms from 1980 to 2005,  dropping from 17 percent of total aid to 3.8 percent over that  period. It now stands at about 5 percent, the FAO said.

Yet, the payoff from agricultural investment, particularly  by governments, can be seen in Brazil, a case study in how the  Green Revolution transformed a developing country.
Within a few decades it developed from a producer of a  handful of cash crops into one of the world’s largest producers  of food stuffs, with an agriculture business worth nearly 300  billion reais ($172 billion) in annual sales.

Brazil began its Green Revolution in the mid-1970s, with  the creation of the government farm research firm Embrapa,  which resulted in increased diversification and productivity of  crops as well as the expansion of cropland.

Each year Embrapa measures the return to society from  research in agriculture. Latest figures show that each dollar  spent on agriculture research generates a return of $13.50.
Last year’s food crisis, when fears of food shortages  gripped grain markets — sending wheat and rice prices soaring  to record highs and sparking hoarding and riots — was a  wake-up call, one that experts hope will translate into  sustained investment.

The unrest was a powerful reminder of the risks of food  insecurity and helped spur the world’s richest nations to  promise to spend $20 billion over three years to help small,  subsistence farmers improve their productivity.

U.S. President Barack Obama has launched a $3.5 billion  hunger and food security initiative focused on agriculture.

Back on the farm in Italy, Oglio said an operation like his  can be run on a shoe-string budget, without the sort of  subsidies that prop up agriculture, even in the wealthy  European Union.

The 87-acre (35-hectare) farm that his parents used to run  in a conventional way was on the edge of bankruptcy 20 years  ago, burdened by high operating costs and competition in the  changing economy of Europe.

With his back-to-nature methods, Oglio turned the farm  around and now makes profits.
But that is a very European story. His customers, he  admits, are willing to pay more for his healthful products  because many of them are environmentalists.
The world’s poorest people — 1 billion of them — may not  have the luxury of making that choice.