Prof M.S. Swaminathan

M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation

Perspective

Global agriculture - facing the challenges

New Agriculturist:What do you see as the challenges facing global agriculture between now and the year 2020?

The first point is that we have to produce more, because today, in spite of the large food mountains there are also millions of hungry. The paradox of hunger in the midst of plenty, of food mountains and hungry mouths co-existing, is a very great shame, a national shame. Secondly, it is also vital to ensure that our production is environmentally sustainable so that the ecological foundations like land and water, and the bio-diversity of flora and fauna are not destroyed. For example, the Punjab is our bread-basket in India. Today the food security is very high but by 2020, they will be very food insecure because of groundwater depletion. There is pollution and soil salinisation taking place and more and more land is becoming unusable. There is no proper crop rotation: it is rice, wheat, rice, wheat, and no legumes are planted in between to replenish soil fertility and soil health.

These challenges can be met only by taking the best in traditional wisdom and technologies, and combining that with cutting-edge science. In order to bridge the divide between the genetic haves and have-nots, we must start at the village level, with the very poor. We need to consider the environmentally safe bio-technologies that are available, whether bio-fertilizers, bio-pesticides, or biological control agents like ladybird beetles. We need to look at how they are produced, how they are marketed, and whether they can make village level agriculture more sustainable. We also need to look at non-farm employment, because a large number of people who are going to bed hungry have no land, no livestock, no assets, and often they are illiterate. But how can you give the asset-less some assets? We must look at the options for rural non-farm employment, offering people new skills and new opportunities.

For a next step we have identified what I call 'bio-valleys', biologically rich areas where, with modern technologies, we can convert the naturally occurring bio-resources into wealth and jobs that are meaningful to the people. These 'bio-valleys' are even more important than 'Silicon Valley' because bio-resources are the ones which can provide the largest number of jobs, whereas the 'Silicon Valley' type economy does not produce many jobs: it results in jobless growth, not job-led growth! Agriculture offers job-led growth.

Then, we have the idea of 'bio-partnership'. This is very important in terms of ethics and equity. At the moment bio-piracies are a growing problem; people come and take away the knowledge of indigenous people. For example there are many plants which indigenous people have found to have medicinal properties. These are the intellectual property of the people who discovered them. If someone else comes and collects those plants, they are taking that intellectual property. In the area of bio-diversity, we can take the example of rice. The International Rice Research Institute tells us that there are over one hundred thousand rice varieties. Of these, some ninety thousand are preserved by communities; they are not in the wild, they are in the community. Now, fortunately, the Global Convention on Biological Diversity for the first time has introduced ethics and equity in knowledge sharing and community conservation.

I also emphasise the need for a gender dimension in agricultural research, for the simple reason that a large number of agricultural activities, particularly those involving much drudgery and very low pay, are done by women. But if given practical help, the rural poor, particularly women, take to new technologies like fish to water. To give you an example from digital technology, in a fishing village I have visited the women were very keen to know about the weather because they are artisanal fishermen. We therefore established a computer-aided and internet connected rural knowledge centre in the villages. Now, they are downloading information on sea conditions through the internet, from the Naval Oceanographic Office of the USA; this is up to date data, not on the global conditions but on what the condition of the sea in their own area will be. The world is becoming information rich but action poor. How to bridge the gap between 'know-how' and 'do-how', is the whole purpose of my work with the rural poor.

Finally, by 2020 the "divides", what we call the demographic divide, the digital divide, the genetic divide, and the nutritional divide will widen, unless we take strong steps between the industrialised countries and the developing countries. In developing countries agriculture is not merely an engine for producing food for the urban population, it's the very backbone of the livelihood security system of the rural masses. In India for example, nearly six hundred million out of one billion depend for their livelihood on agriculture: crops, livestock, fish, trees, agroforestry systems, agro-processing and so on. Therefore, agriculture has a larger meaning in terms both of human well-being, and also peace and security within the country. And we see this everywhere, for example in all the ethnic conflicts in Africa between those who have land and those who do not have land. So, I think agriculture has a critical role in both national and global security. It could be the engine of internal conflicts if agriculture does not go well.

And agriculture is also the engine for the triggering of industrial growth. In India, for example, many of our industries are based upon agricultural raw material, large industries like textiles. Cotton is very important, providing jobs for 60 million people, who entirely depend on the cotton crop. Similarly, with the jute and the sugar cane plantation crops. In addition, rural purchasing power is important for urban industrial growth. Starting from the industrial revolution, technology has been the prime mover of European prosperity, in contrast to those who were not part of that industrial revolution. Today, I'm saying that this technology needs to be an ally in the equity movement.

Professor MS Swaminathan is the UNESCO Cousteau Chair in Ecotechnology and Chairman of the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, India. This perspective is based on an interview he gave to New Agriculturist at the Global Agriculture 2020: which way forward? conference in Norwich, UK, April 2001, at which he was the keynote speaker.

For further information contact: MS.Swaminathan Research Foundation