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Hunger widens with increased production
Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri
If 'surplus' wheat stocks are rotting in the reservoirs of various provincial and federal agencies in Pakistan, then why millions of people are suffering from malnutrition and living below the poverty line?
At the World Food Summit in 1996, a great number of Heads of State made a commitment to cut by half the number of undernourished people in developing countries by 2015 (with 1990-92 as the benchmark period). Since the benchmark period, the number of undernourished people has declined by a total of 39m, corresponding to an average annual decline of 6m. To achieve the World Food Summit goal, the number of undernourished people would have to decrease by an annual rate of 22m for the remaining period--well above the current level of performance. One has to keep on referring to this target again and again at least once a year-on October 16th-when World Food Day is observed on the anniversary of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) founding on 16 October 1945.
According to FAO's latest estimate, there were 815m undernourished people in the world in 1997-99. Out of them 777m were in the developing countries, 27m in the countries in transition and 11m in the developed market economies. More than half of the total undernourished people, (61 percent) are found in Asia, while Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for almost a quarter (24%). The solution proposed to combat world hunger was the use of increased technology for increased food production. Thus "green revolution" and use of "high yielding varieties"-which I refer to as "high responsive varieties" as they cannot produce high yield in the absence of increased inputs-was considered as the only way out.
However, statistics prove that technology cannot fix it all. Keeping aside the environmental consequences, there is a certain limit to which production can be enhanced. According to the The State of Food and Agriculture 2002 an annual publication of FAO, world agricultural (crop and livestock) production over the past two years increased at rates below the average of the preceding periods. Total world agricultural output growth in 2000 is estimated at only 1.2%. The preliminary estimates for 2001 suggest even lower output growth, of 0.6%, the lowest rate since 1993. In both years, this implies a decline in global per capita production and a limit to produce more using high responsive seeds.
Viewed in the long-term context, annual agricultural production growth over the last five years averaged 1.7%, compared with 2.1% over the preceding five-year period and 2.5% in the 1980s, suggesting a trend towards declining rates of output growth for the world as a whole. And this is happening despite the availability of high responsive varieties, fertilisers, and pesticides!
Even in Pakistan, agriculture has grown at an average rate of 3.5% per annum since 1991-92 with wild fluctuations-rising by 11.7% (in 1995-96) and falling by 5.3% (in 1992-92). This fluctuation kept increasing and last year again a negative agriculture growth of (-2.6%) was recorded. It is despite the fact that over the last 17 years (1980-1997), the consumption of pesticides (both imported and manufactured locally) increased from 665 metric tonnes (MT) to 44,872; whereas fertiliser off-take was increased from 1,079 thousand nutrient tonnes (NT) to 2412 thousand NT during the same period. Same is the story for most developing countries, which spend a major share of their meagre foreign reserves in paying the import bills for these chemicals.
Under green revolution, we were forced to keep polluting our soils and water sources until it reached a point where the seed varieties were not responsive to higher dosages of chemical inputs. At the World Food Summit Five Years Later held in Rome this year, the world was shocked to know that despite earlier success stories of green revolution there was no let-off in the plight of world's hunger, and the number of malnourished was still the same. This time the proponents of green revolution changed the label and, backed by the US, came up with the brilliant idea of "gene revolution", or introduction of genetically modified food (GM Food). The American delegate openly declared that eradication of world hunger is only possible through adoption of GM technology.
US support for GM technology is quite justified. How can it betray the US-based multinational companies, which have the patents for GM food and GM seed? No wonder Americans have a big stake in companies such as Monsanto, Novartis, AgrEvo, DuPont, and other chemical companies, which are reinventing themselves as biotechnology companies.
The gene revolution is backed by the World Bank and other IFIs in a similar fashion, as the green revolution was backed by the US and these agencies in the mid '50s to stop peasant resistance movements, and to curb the influence of communism in the developing countries. Gene revolution, they tell us, will save the world from hunger and starvation if we allow these various companies, spurred by the free market (under WTO agreements), to do their magic.
Here, one wonders what this debate has to do with the WFD. Are not we expected to organise hi-fi events in the best hotels of the town and to talk of poor who are suffering from hunger? I was fine with such functions. However, now the practices are being changed and they are not only organising fiascos but also praising the IFIs, especially the World Bank, for their generous funding for poverty reduction aiming to reduce hunger. After all, this funding and the agricultural structural reform loan promises to promote latest technology, including genetically modified food, in Pakistan.
I propose that while marking the WFD, let us be honest and re-visit the lessons learnt from the green revolution. We were a wheat importing country for years, and it is quite a recent phenomenon that the production of wheat has become surplus. These "surplus" wheat stocks are rotting in the reservoirs of various provincial and federal agencies in Pakistan. Well done, green revolution! We have become self-sufficient in wheat, but then why millions of people are suffering from malnutrition and living below the poverty line? Is it not the time to ask under what conditions hunger widens with increased production?
First, when there is no limit on individual land-holding. The big farms keep on taking advantage, accumulating everything; while subsistence farms are replaced by corporate farms. Bravo, we are entering in the world of corporate agricultural farming!
Second, where there is lack of a bargaining balance between the main producers and input suppliers. In our case, the subsistence farmers and the agri-tech companies are forcing the farmers to get a shrinking share of their produce.
Third, where the technologies are not sustainable and their usage depletes the future sources of food production. Compare the consumption of pesticides and fertilisers in Pakistan twenty years ago and now. We have degraded our lands and polluted our ground water with indiscriminate use of chemicals, and now we are going to opt for genetically modified seeds without learning lessons from what happened in India with BT cotton recently.
Fourth, where political will lacks to establish a system of even sharing. Did any of the political parties mention "food security" in their manifestos for the recent election? Did any of the political parties talk of the adverse consequences of Corporate Agricultural Farming Ordinance introduced by the military regime-practically removing the upper ceiling of agricultural land holding? Was there any single promise that land reforms of 1977 would not be amended to accommodate Corporate Agricultural Farming? The answer is 'No'. If it remains the attitude of those who run the State, then the malnourished and poor would have no option left other than to criticise the State.
Under the above-mentioned four conditions that prevail in Pakistan, even mountains of food would not be sufficient to tackle the problem of hunger. In my opinion, hunger is not due to shortage of food. It is not a production problem. It is a distribution problem. Let us make our systems viable enough to promote equal distribution of whatever is produced. We need to create and produce viable small farms on the principles of agro-ecology and sustainable agriculture. This is the only practicable alternative. Otherwise, the problem of hunger would always persist and we would continue to moan about the plight of the world's poor on WFD every year.
Courtesy The News
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