AKANIMO SAMPSON

FOOD SECURITY DEPENDS ON AGRIC, SAYS UNDP CHIEF

CHIEF Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said in a chat that world food security depended upon getting “back to basics” with agriculture.

The former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who now heads the UNDP, spoke on what she saw as the solution to future food security problems. Responding to questions on Thursday on Zealand’s national radio show Nine to Noon, Ms. Clark said that “smarter farming and production has got to be part of the solution”.

The radio programme was however, monitored for our correspondent by the Chair of the Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), Nnimmo Bassey.

Bassey who is also the Executive Director of the Environmental Rights Action (ERA) in Nigeria, said when asked directly if she agreed with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s science advisor Dr. Nina Federoff that without GE (genetic engineering) the world would suffer future food shortages, she said “I don’t think GE is the solution to the food security problem.”

Instead, Clark argued for more funding for agriculture that emphasised
solutions to the problems faced by poor farmers. Public funding for
extension services and agricultural research that improves
productivity and yield had to increase rather than relying upon
genetically modified organisms.

Ms. Clark could have been reading straight from the International
Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for
Development (IAASTD), the internationally peer-reviewed World Bank and UN report published last year after winning endorsement from 58
governments.

This report represents the work of the largest research
effort to date on the history and future of modern agriculture.
Consistent with Clark’s statements, the IAASTD also endorsed a renewed emphasis on technologies that have proven track records for improving yield, reducing external inputs into agroecosystems, preventing the conversion of more land for agriculture and helping agriculture to improve the lives of poor and subsistence farmers.

Those kinds of technologies include conventional crop breeding,
agroecological methods for increasing soil moisture retention and
decreasing erosion, and intensification using more diverse cropping
strategies and cover crops rather than fossil fuel-intensive
fertilizers and damaging monocultures.

The giant agrochemical and biotechnology companies, along with
Federoff, have been advocating reduced regulation and broader uptake of GE in order to feed the world. Clark noted, however, that using crops for biofuel was competing with crops for food. She concluded that “I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that modified crops were the answer.” ENDS