“The agriculture-hunger-poverty nexus

Eradicating hunger and poverty requires an understanding of the ways in which these two injustices interconnect. Hunger, and the malnourishment that accompanies it, prevents poor people from escaping poverty because it diminishes their ability to learn, work, and care for themselves and their family members. If left unaddressed, hunger sets in motion an array of outcomes that perpetuates malnutrition, reduces the ability of adults to work and to give birth to healthy children, and erodes children's ability to learn and lead productive, healthy, and happy lives. This truncation of human development undermines a country's potential for economic development--for generations to come.

There are strong, direct relationships between agricultural productivity, hunger, and poverty. Three-quarters of the world's poor live in rural areas and make their living from agriculture. Hunger and child malnutrition are greater in these areas than in urban areas. Moreover, the higher the proportion of the rural population that obtains its income solely from subsistence farming (without the benefit of pro-poor technologies and access to markets), the higher the incidence of malnutrition. Therefore, improvements in agricultural productivity aimed at small-scale farmers will benefit the rural poor first.

Increased agricultural productivity enables farmers to grow more food, which translates into better diets and, under market conditions that offer a level playing field, into higher farm incomes. With more money, farmers are more likely to diversify production and grow higher-value crops, benefiting not only themselves but the economy as a whole.

A larger supply of agricultural products also brings prices down, allowing both the rural and urban poor to purchase essential foods for less money.

Smaller food bills mean that landless poor people will have more money to invest in assets, which will help them increase income and survive future economic shocks. This income and asset security helps build a solid foundation for economic growth, by enabling people to work free from the debilitating effects of hunger and under nutrition. A flourishing agriculture sector also facilitates job creation in other areas, such as the food processing and marketing sectors, and creates secondary economic effects in the no farm economy.

By increasing food availability and incomes and contributing to asset diversity and economic growth, higher agricultural productivity and supportive pro-poor policies allow people to break out of the poverty-hunger-malnutrition trap. Empirical research provides stark evidence of the benefits of agricultural productivity. In Africa, for example, a 10 percent increase in the level of agricultural productivity is associated with a 7.2 percent reduction in poverty. In India, a similar increase in productivity has been estimated to decrease poverty by 4 percent in the short run and 12 percent in the long run."

It is critical that though we link low agricultural productivity with hunger and poverty, we overlook the fact that failed food distribution system too is responsible for hunger and poverty. It is not necessary that high production gives more money to small farmers. There is possibility that prices of the product may come down and farmers may not get the returns of their investment. We also need to think the reason behind the hunger of our rural India inspire of being a major producer. As soon as you have purchasing power of food you are food secure. It is clear with the fact that there is more hunger and malnutrition in rural areas than in urban areas [Underweight prevalence is higher in rural areas (50 percent) than in urban areas (38 percent), World Bank Statistics, 1998]. We also need to think the reasons of inability of holding food by small farmers at least for themselves and their families.

2003-2004 IFPRI Annual Report Essay has given following solutions to reduce hunger and food insecurity.


Raising agricultural productivity and benefiting from agriculture

To obtain higher agricultural productivity will require seeds and other agricultural technologies matched to the local agroclimatic, labor, and market needs of small-scale farmers. These technologies, which must be environmentally friendly, will come from both conventional and newer scientific approaches, including scientifically sound and environmentally safe genetic modification. Agricultural innovation must raise yields and reduce environmental costs, and be affordable to small-scale farmers. In many regions, the land itself needs regeneration because soils have become less productive due to loss of nutrients. This problem requires research on methods for reducing nutrient loss and replenishing soils. To innovate on all these fronts in ways that serve poor farmers, national and international agricultural research systems must be strengthened.

How can the poor benefit most from higher agricultural productivity? Past experience has shown that a number of key conditions help maximize the benefits of a growing agriculture sector for poor people. To achieve faster agriculture-based growth rates, favorable macroeconomic and trade policies, good infrastructure, and access to credit, land, and markets must be in place. These conditions create level playing fields and give farmers incentives to adopt new and sustainable technologies and diversify production into higher-value crops, actions that raise incomes and lift households out of poverty.

In addition to pro-poor economic and agricultural policies, agriculture, like other sectors, needs good governance, absence of conflict, and well-functioning markets and private enterprise to flourish.

In the case of the latter, the development and business communities increasingly recognize that the MDGs cannot be achieved and private enterprise cannot flourish without greater and more equitable involvement of poor people in markets. In many developing countries, small farmers face unfavorable terms of trade, paying more for inputs than they receive from the sale of their products. An improved domestic regulatory framework would intensify competition among suppliers of essential inputs, such as seeds and fertilizer. In addition, the elimination of trade barriers for agricultural products, especially the high-value-added products, would encourage a greater number of private entrepreneurs to explore opportunities in agribusiness. A healthy market and private sector would provide value-added, skilled work to the landless poor and generate multiple livelihood opportunities in both the farm and no farm sectors.

The idea of enticing global private enterprise into developing-country markets is not new but the expectations are different this time around. In many respects they are driven by a greater understanding that just any kind of economic growth will not improve the lives of the poor. It will take a particular kind of private-sector involvement to generate the necessary economic transformations. Private entrepreneurs are now increasingly held to environmental, social, and corporate governance principles that stress sustainable business practices and adherence to labor standards. Without these standards and practices, the private sector and disadvantaged groups cannot mutually benefit from consumer, employment, and entrepreneurial activities.

When good governance, equitable markets, and the other key conditions noted above are absent, poor farmers are unlikely to earn decent incomes and secure adequate diets for themselves and their families. If agriculture underperforms or fails, nonfarmers will also feel the negative effects. We need to keep uppermost in our minds that significant gains in agricultural productivity have provided the critical first steps in economic development in many countries.¹

This note stresses more on high agricultural productivity and marketing support with involvement of private sector partnership with public. The solutions also focus on the kind of genetic modification which is environmentally friendly and suitable to human consumption. Whether this helps poor farmers and starving people or not is difficult to measure but before promoting bio-technology we simply need to ask few questions.

BPL Issue

There is no doubt that PDS can act as the most critical shield for the poor at times of high inflation as is being witnessed at present. It is supposed to be available to all families living below the poverty line (BPL). The definition of BPL in terms of economic criteria is often disputed. According to the poverty estimates of Planning Commission last year, the percentage of BPL population in the country has come down to 27.5 pc by 2004-05 as against 36 pc in 1993-94. Around 10.27 crore ration cards have been issued all over the country to BPL families, but a large number of BPL families in relatively more backward states like Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh are still without these cards.

However, the problem is, that the benefit does not reach the needy in full measure. Several authentic studies on the subject have shown that almost 53 per cent of the foodgrains released by the government for distribution to the BPL families is siphoned off and gets diverted to the open market.

Instead of taking measures to plug the loopholes and bring the guilty to book, the Centre drastically cut the allocation for PDS last year – from 71.69 lakh tonnes to 32.7 lakh tonnes. Since state governments run the PDS, many states have lodged protests over the reduction in allocation. Problem is not just confined to foodgrains. Kerosene that is supplied through the PDS too is diverted.  ⁷


Will biotechnology solve the problem of Industrial Agriculture?

Andrew Kimbrell Says, “New biotech crops will not solve industrial agriculture's problems, but will compound them and consolidate control of the world's food supply in the hands of a few large corporations. Biotechnology will destroy biodiversity and food security, and drive self-sufficient farmers off their land.

The myths of industrial agriculture share one underlying and interwoven concept. They demand that we accept that technology always equals progress. This belief has often blinded us to the consequences of many farming technologies. Now, however, many people are asking some very logical questions. A given technology may be progress, but progress toward what? What future will that technology bring us?
We see that pesticide technology is bringing us a future of cancer epidemics, toxic water and air, and the widespread destruction of biodiversity. We see that nuclear technology — used in our food in irradiation — is bringing us a future of undisposable nuclear waste, massive clean-up expenses and multiple threats to human and environmental health.

As a growing portion of society realizes that pesticides, fertilizers, monoculture and factory farming are little more than a fatal harvest, even the major agribusiness corporations are starting to admit that some problems exist. Their solution to the damage caused by the previous generation of agricultural technologies is — you guessed it — more technology. 'Better' technology, biotechnology, a technology that will fix the problems caused by chemically intensive agriculture.

In short, the myth makers are back at work. But looking past the rhetoric, a careful examination of the new claims about genetic engineering reveals that instead of solving the problems of modern agriculture, biotechnology only makes them worse.” ⁸

Even if it is proved that genetic modification will reduce the se of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, we are still far from sustainable food. It is because genetic modification is a product of few cooperates and multinational companies and dependence for seeds will make farmers vulnerable to the monopoly of these companies. So the idea of making farmers self reliance is difficult under such situation. …..

Davindar Sharma says: The global community is following suit. Agricultural biotechnology advances are being desperately promoted in the name of eradicating hunger and poverty.

The misguided belief that the biotechnological 'silver bullet' can solve hunger, malnutrition and real poverty has prompted industry and the development community, political masters and policy makers, agricultural scientists and economists to chant the mantra of 'harnessing technology to address specific problems facing poor people'. And, into the bargain, what is being conveniently overlooked is that what world’s 840 million hungry need is just food, which is abundantly available.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) annual Human Development Report (HDR) 2001, Making New Technologies Work for Human Development, is yet another biotechnology industry-sponsored study. It categorically mentions on the one hand that 'technology is created in response to market pressures - not the needs of poor people, who have little purchasing power,' and yet, goes on unabashedly to eulogise the virtues of an untested technology in the laboratories of the North. These in turn are being pushed onto the gullible resource-poor communities of the South - and that too in the name of eradicating hunger and poverty.

The report states that emerging centres of excellence throughout the developing world are already providing hard evidence of the potential for harnessing cutting-edge science and technology (as biotechnology is fondly called) to tackle centuries-old problems of human poverty. But what the report does not mention is the fact that the biggest challenge facing the global community is increasing hunger and poverty in the developing countries, which need to be tackled by a social and political commitment rather than a market-driven technological agenda. ⁹

Must Read : Future Organic by Andre Leu, New Internationalist, UK, 01/06/2004 [C.eldoc/k33_/Future-organic.html]

Changes that have implications for food security

At a larger level, GM crops pose serious implications to food security given their unpredictability and stress intolerance. This could mean unexpected crop failures, especially so in the age of climate change. Therefore, instead of actually eliminating hunger and malnutrition, GE crops have the potential to wipe out existing food security.

It is now very clear that with genetic engineering, changes certainly happen from the molecular to the eco-systems level and that the notion of “substantial equivalence” with which the GE industry sought to equate GE with non-GE just is not true. It is also obvious that not all changes are immediately apparent or can be captured in tests designed with a narrow scope. We do not even know what questions to ask for many of these aspects to be studied!

Another interesting phenomenon that makes scientific testing a very difficult proposition in the case of GE crops is that genetic sequences of the products being tested could be different than that which had been described by the biotech companies during regulatory approvals. It is understood that this is probably because the inserted genes rearranged over time. In the case of Roundup Ready Soybean, for instance, a Brussels lab confirmed that the genetic sequences were different than what was originally listed. But the sequences discovered in Brussels didn’t match those found by the French. This suggests that the inserted genes are unstable and can change in different ways. It also means that they are creating new proteins—ones that were never intended or tested. It follows logically that unstable genes make accurate safety testing impossible.¹⁰

Cost Effectiveness

Andrew Kimbrell says, “Biotech companies have spent billions of dollars researching the effects of inserting fish genes into tomatoes, firefly genes into tobacco plants, human genes into farm animals, and creating thousands of other transgenic organisms. It has taken thousands of trials just to come up with herbicide-resistant crops that lead to lower yields and greater chemical use.

Biotechnology has yet to bring to market a single product that actually benefits consumers. As companies pass on the enormous costs of their research, why should the public pay more for biotech foods that offer no advantages and only risks?
The biotechnology industry continues to promote itself as the ultimate panacea for all the problems of industrial agriculture. A review of its real impacts reveals that it is not an antidote to modern agriculture but rather simply a continuation and exacerbation of today's food production crisis. Biotechnology increases environmental degradation, causes new food safety risks and threatens to increase world hunger.
It is not the solution, but a major part of the problem.” ¹¹

Genetically Modified food for Poor

The state of agriculture Report by FAO in 2003-2004 claim that biotechnology- including genetic engineering –can benefit the poor when appropriate innovations are developed and when poor farmers or poor countries have access to them on profitable terms.
There is a clear promise that biotechnology can contribute to meeting challenges of agriculture. Biotechnology an overcome production constrains that are more difficult or intractable with conventional breeding. It can speed up conventional breeding programs and provide farmers with disease free planting materials. ¹²

In agriculture, the Human Development Report 2001 claims plant breeding promises to generate higher yields and resistance to drought, pests and diseases.

Biotechnology offers, it says, the only or the best 'tool of choice' for marginal ecological zones — left behind by the green revolution but home to more than half the world's poorest people, dependent on agriculture and livestock. It is true that the green revolution left behind the small and marginal farmers living in some of the world's most inhospitable areas. But the way the tools of cutting-edge technology are being applied and blindly promoted, biotechnology will certainly bypass the world's hungry and marginalized.

After all, science and technology is aimed at removing hunger. The Green revolution was aimed at addressing the problem of hunger, and did a remarkable job within its limits. And now, while stockpiles of food are left to rot, the global community appears reluctant to make it available to the marginalized communities who cannot afford to buy pay for it. No aid agency, including the so-called philanthropic ones: Ford, Rockefeller, ActionAid, Christian Aid, Oxfam, the British Department for International Development and the like are willing to take the bull by the horns.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, which works towards reducing hunger, has also shied away from this Herculean task. It has instead convened a meeting of Heads of State in Rome in November, five years after the World Food Summit, to reiterate its promise of halving world's hunger by the year 2015. ¹³

The stark reality is that contrary to the avowed claims of the promoters of genetic engineering in agriculture that their work is in the name of hunger and poverty and that it is the sure-shot and the cost-effective means to ensure food security as also feed the hungry millions in the Third World, agricultural biotechnology is essentially being developed for the western markets. The irony is that not many biotechnology laboratories in the developed world focuses on meeting the growing food needs of the developing countries although invariably research in genetic engineering is done in the name of hunger, poverty and food security of the developing countries.

There is obviously a huge gap between reality and perception that needs to be filled. Genetic engineering industry is developing novel products, which have wider applications in the North. These products are being pushed to the South since the companies are keen on garnering more profits. For instance, the controversial recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) was essentially developed for the American and European dairy farmers. It was only after the European Union imposed a ban that the multinational industry, which developed the product, started looking for markets elsewhere. ¹⁴

What does poor need?

In India, which is "self-sufficient" in foodgrain production, reports of hunger and starvation pour in regularly from the infamous Kalahandi region and more recently from Kashipur in Orissa on the western coast. The region, with a population of some 20 million, suffers from the pangs of hunger and malnutrition despite any visible signs of ecological devastation. Kalahandi is otherwise a fertile tract and has traditionally been a basket of food. So much so that in 1943, at the time of the Bengal Famine, Kalahandi had come to the rescue of the famine stricken Bengal !!

The problem is certainly not of production. What is not known is that Kalahandi region is the biggest contributor of surplus rice to the central food reserves. Between 1996 and 2001, Kalahandi has been providing some 50,000 tonnes of rice surplus on an average to the food reserves of the government of India. The reason why people die of starvation and hunger is not because there is not enough food but because they cannot afford to buy the food they produce. Biotechnology has no mechanism to ensure that food comes within the reach of these poorest of the poor.

Talking about nutritional security, some 12 million people suffer from Vit A deficiency in India alone, world over the number is some 68 million. The industry therefore is clamouring that it has a viable answer to fight the micro-nutrient deficiency.

Under a Indo-Swiss collaboration, ‘golden rice’ technology has been made available to the ICAR and the Indian Department of Biotechnology. The project, funded to the tune of U.S. $ 2.6 million over seven years aims to engineer the pro-vitamin A genes into local varieties of rice.

ICAR’s tryst with "golden rice" is in reality a blind experimentation and a desperate attempt to regain its lost pride in agricultural research. Suffering from a credibility crisis in the absence of any significant breakthrough after the initial phase of ‘green revolution’, it is trying its best to distract attention from more pressing problems confronting the rural society. Thousands of farmers have committed suicide in several parts of the country since 1987, the ICAR has remained a mute spectator. But when it comes to biotechnology, ICAR gets hypersensitive and leads the industry’s march. A majority of the acutely malnourished people, that the proponents of ‘golden rice’ claim to be targeting, are the ones who cannot afford to buy rice from the market. A majority of these people live in areas like Kalahandi.

If these poor people cannot afford to buy normal rice, how will they buy ‘golden rice’ is a question that has been very conveniently overlooked. If these hungry millions were able to meet their daily requirement of rice, there would be no malnutrition at the first place. These are the people who are not in need of choices, not in need of ‘novel’ and ‘functional foods. Given a choice, all they need is food. The problem, therefore, cannot be addressed by providing nutritional supplements through GM rice but by bringing in suitable policy changes that forces the government as well as the society to ensure food for all.

Moreover, the human body requires an adequate level of fats to absorb the fortified nutrients. In simple terms, the poor and hungry are the ones who lack enough body fats, and therefore would not be able to take advantage of the ‘miracle’ nutritious foods. What these poor need, at the first place is a balanced diet that builds up their ability to absorb nutrients. ¹⁵