KEY POINTS:
It is a common contention that we are currently in the midst of a food crisis and the solution to the problem is a wave of the magic wand of free trade, and a sprinkling of genetic engineering.
These contentions are a vast underestimate of the problem at hand and the solutions that are needed.
The current situation of sky-rocketing food prices, riots, hunger and malnutrition is not a crisis because the shortage is not yet resulting in starvation. Riots are only the warning of a problem so large, we can barely comprehend it.
Without change, increased human demand, via an extra 2.4 billion people, will probably outstrip the ecological supply of cheap food in the coming decades. Of a future total of 9.2 billion, 8 billion will be living in developing countries.
The projections for future demands for many basic food stuffs, such as cereals or meat, suggest increases in supply of between 75 and 100 per cent will be needed by 2050.
The 70 million people who died of starvation in the 20th century were victims of policies which were criminally stupid, ethically corrupt or plain evil. In the 21st century, these reasons may be joined by ecological scarcity, which could easily create disasters of unparalleled magnitude because nations do not starve politely.
The first step to solve this problem is to reduce demand. This can be done by seeking to constrain population growth in the areas where it is likely to worsen the problem. Efforts at reducing population growth must be redoubled and stretch beyond adequate and voluntary access to safe and effective birth control. Emphasis must be put on gender empowerment, education and economic security.
The second step to solve this problem is to increase supply. The first port of call is the World Trade Organisation. A new agreement on agriculture could ensure that the food mountains that are created and dumped, and remarkable economic distortions in this area are finally tackled. Until these are removed, import barriers to protect unduly vulnerable agricultural sectors, and a near religious faith in agricultural self-sufficiency make good political sense.
But agricultural protectionism does not necessarily make good sense if the objective is to increase the global supply of food, lower its costs and save countries money. Caution is very important in this area, as although a freer trade in agriculture would help reduce prices, it may also lead to a wholesale devastation of the 450 million small-scale farmers currently in the developing world.
The problem is, these small-scale farmers are a large part of the solution to the problem. They are crucial because helping these people reduces poverty, can give direct incentives to local conservation, and the room for increased efficiencies in agricultural output is much greater in poorer countries.
This is not to suggest that additional trade barriers should be included to protect small- scale farmers. Rather, there is a strong case for the creation of opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship, which explicitly target resource poor farmers.
Governments in the developing world, with strong international support, should execute capital infrastructure projects, such as effective irrigation, transport and communication facilities, which are often too expensive for small farmers to produce.
Facilitation of credit, education, and most importantly, public-based science are essential if agricultural output is to be enhanced. If these are in place, then it may be possible to repeat the same trick that was performed several decades ago with the Green Revolution. Although there were social and environmental costs, the science and its application of the Green Revolution was a remarkable success in terms of rates of agricultural production growing much faster than rates of human reproduction.
Current developments with genetic modification appear to offer a second Green Revolution of sorts. But the benefits are primarily in the areas of making food more nutritious, and crops more hardy.
While these are important, they are not, as yet, creating large increases in output. Due to the lack of public-orientated research in this area, the focus is typically upon the crops where the greatest profits reside, but not necessarily the greatest needs. Finally, for both conventional and biotechnological research to receive the kick-start it requires, the international community must conclude the international arrangements which will restart the flow in raw genetic resources.
Although some commendable work has been done in this area with the Food and Agricultural Organisation, the majority of the world's attention has been focused upon the proposed Access and Benefit Agreement, and in this area, progress has been painfully slow. A number of countries have refused to allow the raw biodiversity in their countries to be exported to other regions, for fear that they may not benefit equitably from its modified form. This fundamental building block for the potential success of genetic engineering in this area must be removed.
To begin to solve this problem the access and benefit sharing agreement must be concluded. A quantum leap in genetic engineering must be undertaken, and the free trade agreement in agriculture has to be supplemented by measures that will be the primary solution to the problem. If these problems are not fixed, all 9.2 billion of us will have a crisis on our hands.
* Professor Alexander Gillespie is at the school of law, University of Waikato.
