The sustainable agriculture imperative for food security

Professorial Chair Lecture

Central Bank Professorial Chair Lecture

Place

Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture

Date

7-6-1999

Abstract

Very few contest the fact that many people lack adequate food. The world population is now 5.9 billion people and it is still increasing. New estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 1998) indicate that there are 828 million chronically undernourished people in the world. To meet the needs of these additional people, it was calculated that global food production has to increase by more than 75% over the next 25 years or so. The analysis of how this problem could be solved varies.

Using data from various sources (e.g. FAO, World Bank, IFPRI, UNDP, etc.) and their own, the gene tech entrepreneurs depict an apocalyptic future if their genetically modified organism products (GMOs) do not prevail in the marketplace, and a glorious future if they do. Advocates of the sustainable agriculture, on the other hand, contend that genetic engineering could not be relied on to solve the food and nutrition problem of the world since the industry itself admits, they only produce products for 'farmers who can afford'. Data had been cited showing that more productive crops are only part of the solution to the world hunger problem. More importantly, genetic engineering when applied in developing countries poses environment/ecological, economic, equity, ethical and socio-political problems. There are also cheap, locally relevant, no risks sustainable agriculture alternatives to every agricultural problem that genetic engineering promise to solve.

Detractors of the 'sustainable agriculture solution' to food and nutrition problems contend that without pesticides, commercial fertilizers, other chemically based inputs, and high-energy use in land intensive crop production systems, yields under sustainable agriculture production system will be low and will not be able to feed the increasing world population. This is untrue. There are compelling evidence that shows that developing countries could feed themselves quite adequately with sustainable farming technologies. Remarkably, the best evidence comes from those very countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America that the industry wants to help feed. Documented examples abound where whole communities have completely redesigned their farming and other local economic activities. In all these initiatives, the sustainability dividend is very large.

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