Rome, Italy
June 3, 2008
Earlier efforts to achieve
sustainable agriculture stalled by declining support
With the aim of helping avert future food crises, the world’s
largest organization dedicated to international agricultural
research called today for renewed commitment to a revolution in
sustainable agriculture, which was set for success in the 1990s
but then stalled as a result of waning financial support.
Just as all the elements needed for such a revolution came
together more than a decade ago, support for agriculture, at the
international and national levels, went into a tailspin,
explained Emile Frison, Director General of Bioversity
International – one of 15 centers supported by the
Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Frison spoke on
behalf of the Alliance of CGIAR Centers during the High-Level
Conference on World Food Security: The Challenges of Climate
Change and Bio-energy, organized by the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
Adjusting for inflation and exchange rates, Frison noted,
wealthy countries cut their support roughly in half from US$6
billion to $2.8 billion between 1980 and 2006. “The new
revolution in sustainable agriculture was essentially put on
hold,” he remarked.
“That‘s one of the reasons we’re facing a food price crisis
now,” Frison continued. “It also helps explain why we’re not
better prepared to confront the impacts of climate change in
agriculture. Farmers would be much further along in adapting to
those impacts, if more of them had the resilient varieties now
available and if more were using improved practices for managing
natural resources, including biodiversity, soils, water and
small-scale fisheries.”
Beginning in the 1960s, international agricultural research
centers later supported by the CGIAR began developing modern
varieties of rice and wheat, which made possible the worldwide
Green Revolution in agriculture. Responding well to fertilizer,
the new varieties gave crop yields a large boost, especially in
irrigated areas with uniformly favorable conditions. The steady
stream of improved varieties and other technologies had huge
impact. For every dollar invested in CGIAR research since 1971,
nine dollars worth of additional food has been produced,
according to a 2003 study led by Yale economist Robert Evenson.
The Green Revolution even offered environmental benefits,
lessening the pressure on fragile land that otherwise would have
been brought into cultivation. But it also had environmental
costs. More intensive cultivation, without proper resource
management, led in many places to severe degradation of soils
and water.
By the 1990s, however, the CGIAR had in place a strong program
of research to achieve a more sustainable revolution in
agriculture. Through that research, they found ways to balance
the need for more intensive crop production with the need to
protect natural resources. A notable example is the spread of
“zero-till” technology in the rice-wheat systems of South Asia’s
Indo-Gangetic Plain. Close to half a million farmers are using
this technology on more than 3.2 million hectares, according to
CGIAR impact reports. Crop yields are higher, and production
costs are down, mainly because of savings in energy and water.
Economic benefits were estimated several years ago to have
reached a total of $147 million.
Increased harvests and steadily declining food prices throughout
the 1980s and 1990s lulled donors into complacency about
agriculture, Frison commented, and they shifted attention to
other development challenges. Despite the funding cuts to
agriculture, key research received support and produced
important results. For that reason, Frison asserted, the
Alliance of CGIAR Centers is ready to help resolve the current
food crisis and reduce the risk of future crises through a set
of short-, medium- and long-term measures, outlined in an action
plan presented at the FAO High-Level Conference.
“We urgently need to accelerate the flow of new varieties
tolerant to heat, drought and other stresses that will become
worse with climate change,” Frison said. “We must also spread
more widely the new tools and methods from research on natural
resource management. But there are no simple solutions and no
magic bullets.
“Nor should we concentrate just on globally important staples,”
Frison added. Locally important crops and livestock, for example
millets in India, bananas across much of Africa, and Andean
roots and tubers and grains in South America, are often the key
source of sustenance for poor, rural people. Production in such
systems, which are common in marginal areas, must be increased
to improve food security and nutrition for the poorest farmers.
“Success will require a substantial increase in funding and
collective action among all key actors and players,” Frison
stressed. ”We believe that, in order to deliver the knowledge
and technologies required, we must double our annual investment
in pro-poor research.” The Alliance will continue to work in
concert with other international institutions, such as FAO, the
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the
World Food Programme and World Bank, as well as with many
regional, national and local partners.
The CGIAR, established in 1971, is a strategic partnership of
countries, international and regional organizations and private
foundations supporting the work of 15 international Centers. In
collaboration with national agricultural research systems, civil
society and the private sector, the CGIAR fosters sustainable
agricultural growth through high-quality science aimed at
benefiting the poor through stronger food security, better human
nutrition and health, higher incomes and improved management of
natural resources. For more information, please visit
www.cgiar.org. |
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