TWO of the greatest challenges facing humankind are reducing hunger and poverty. Today, in a world of plenty, about 800 million people are malnourished, most of them living in the rural areas of developing countries. Agricultural science and technology can tackle these problems and help our dream of a world free of hunger and poverty become a reality.
That is why a group of international humanitarian agencies want to assess how agricultural science and technology around the world can be brought to bear on the problem. The assessment will analyse the challenges developing countries face in producing nutritious accessible food and ask how science and technology can help.
The demand for food is likely to change dramatically in the near future. With global GDP projected to rise by a factor of four by 2050, an increase in wealth will trigger a change in the type and nutritional quality of food that people demand. Couple this with a population that could reach 9 billion by 2050 and the challenges are evident.
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Addressing the twin challenges of reducing poverty and hunger is not impossible. In recent decades, a number of countries have successfully achieved it. In most cases they began by boosting agricultural production. This not only feeds people but kick-starts a rural economy that increases income and triggers increased investment and economic growth. Vietnam, Thailand and China successfully used this model, and watched calorific intake increase and the percentage of people malnourished decrease. The question is how to learn from their experience.
In many developing countries, the demand for increased food production comes at a difficult time. Because of AIDS and other diseases there are fewer people to work the land. Water supplies are dwindling because of demand from other industries and the amount of arable land is falling because of declining soil fertility, urbanisation and war. As a consequence, food production per capita has actually fallen in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
The assessment will ask how agricultural science and technology has tackled these problems in the past and how it might help in future. For example, how might it help communities make better use of dwindling water supplies, or increase soil fertility and improve the nutritional quality of food. And how can science combat agricultural pests and diseases, reduce post-harvest losses and improve food safety? It will also tackle contentious issues such as transgenics and provide a critical evaluation of the environmental and health benefits and risks associated with them.
Many problems, however, may be addressed with low-tech solutions. For example, in many developing countries farmers produce only 1 tonne per hectare in areas where they might be expected to produce 5 to 7 tonnes. GM crops may increase yield but so too could fertilisers. This would mean creating an infrastructure in which farmers can get the fertiliser they need at affordable prices. Fixing this problem may require better roads not state-of-the-art transgenic technology.
Another challenge will be to anticipate the problems of the next 50 years. For example, the growth of the economy in China is creating a dramatic change in eating habits. The staple diet for most of the 1.4 billion people in China is rice, but their new-found wealth is increasing demand for fish and meat. It is not yet clear whether China will meet this demand by importing meat or the grain necessary to increase local livestock production. Either way, China’s new eating habits will have a dramatic impact on the agricultural economy in the region.
Vital to the success of meeting the challenges facing us will be bringing together all groups who care about reducing hunger and poverty: governments, the private sector, NGOs, food producers and consumers as well as the scientific community. The agencies sponsoring the assessment are the World Bank, the Food and Agricultural Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The idea behind the assessment is to stimulate partnerships, and ensure the development and promotion of technologies accessible to all producers, including women. Therefore, the assessment will also address issues such as land tenure, women’s access to resources, intellectual property rights and the efficacy of policies and institutions in ensuring the poor have access to appropriate technologies.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan supports the initiative, which will be developed in detail in Nairobi early next month. The assessment will begin later this year and will take three years to complete at a cost of $15 million. With the world’s total research budget for agricultural science and technology running to $33 billion each year, this modest amount will help us determine how to better target investments in agricultural research to more effectively tackle hunger and poverty.