The Use of GM Crops in Developing Countries
The socio-economic context: the role of agriculture in developing countries
2.1 In this section, we briefly review the economic and demographic evidence which guided our deliberations in the 1999 Report on the use of GM crops in developing countries. We considered possibilities for the improvement of agricultural practice, food security and reduction of poverty. We contrast the findings of the 1999 Report with recent evidence about the growth of populations, particularly the proportion of those of working age, in developing countries. We then discuss the relationship between the availability of food and the demand for labour, which leads to conclusions about the role of agriculture in reducing poverty. We also consider the impact of specific climatic and ecological conditions.
The framework of the 1999 Report
2.2 In the 1999 Report, we approached the question of whether GM crops can offer benefits for poor people in developing countries through the following argument. In developed countries, food production has kept ahead of growth in population during the past 60 years. This was also the case in much of Asia and Latin America, even where the area of available farmland could not be increased. Across these latter regions, a yield-enhancing Green Revolution (see Box 1.3) created considerable employment and greatly improved life for small-scale farmers and landless labourers. It also brought less expensive and more reliable staple foods to poor consumers. In consequence, crop yields of small-scale farmers and incomes for those in rural employment rose, and poverty and hunger fell dramatically in many countries between 1970-90.
2.3 However, Africa and some parts of Asia saw little gain and agricultural production grew no faster than population. In the 1990s, the improvement in yields and the rate of decline of global poverty were far less than in the previous two decades. Yield expansion had been curtailed by water shortages, soil erosion and new types of pests and diseases. In addition, the initial rate of improvement of the Green Revolution was not sustained between 1985-90. Semi-dwarf rice and wheat varieties had already been introduced to the best-suited lands, leaving less dynamic crops for use elsewhere. These trends looked set to continue, as did a rise in the population, and more significantly, in the number of persons of working age.
2.4 Even in countries with aggregate surpluses of food, people remained unable to afford enough to eat, unless they were able to increase their incomes from employment. India frequently has 60 million tons of staple foods, over a third of its annual consumption and production, in public grain stores. Yet, access is limited. Despite slow and steady improvements over the last few decades, over half of all children under five years old are stunted, an even higher proportion than in Africa.1 But this does not mean that extra food production is irrelevant to India’s undernourished. Most of them are poor, and therefore hungry, because they can neither produce enough food on their small farms, nor obtain sufficient employment by working on those of others. Enhancement of yields on small farms, which tends to increase the demand and hence rewards for poor labourers, addresses this problem. It does so much more affordably than alternative and less employment-creating routes to economic growth. This approach also increases the availability of food for poor people by reducing and stabilising the price of basic foodstuffs locally, which is of particular importance since food accounts for 60-80% of total expenditure by low-income groups.
2.5 Employment can be provided most readily in industry or agriculture. However, it is normally much more expensive to create jobs in modern, especially urban, industries. This is due to high costs of related capital such as equipment, machinery and factory buildings. Investments in private and social infrastructure, such as policing, healthcare and urban roads are also required. The provision of employment in agriculture, on the other hand, can be achieved at lower costs. Furthermore, growth in rural non-farm jobs, which was the source of much reduction in rural poverty after the initial Green Revolution in China and elsewhere, depended mainly on demand from nearby small-scale farmers and their employees.
2.6 The above evidence and argument led us to the following con
clusions in our 1999 Report, which have been reinforced by evidence accumulating from 1999-2003:
| To resume the rapid reduction in poverty and malnutrition of the 1970-80s and to extend it to Africa, employment on farms and the growth of productivity in staple crops had to be revived, either through the expansion of farmland, or the increase in yields. |
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| The expansion of farmland was seldom feasible, environmentally and otherwise. | Conventional plant breeding was still making very substantial contributions to growth in yield. But its effect was increasingly reduced by new types of pest, exhaustion of micronutrients, water shortages and unsuitability of land (especially in Africa) for important semi-dwarf varieties of rice and wheat. There was overall exhaustion of the huge potential created by the early breakthroughs of the Green Revolution. |
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| GM crops could be particularly relevant for areas so far untouched by the Green Revolution. Crops that were better suited to environmental constraints could be developed, leading to considerable increases in yield. |
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| GM crops as a tool of, and addition to, conventional plant breeding, could revive, stabilise and spread the growth in yields of food staples, and of other crops grown by poor people. |
1 United Nations Administrative Committee on Coordination Sub-Committee on Nutrition (ACC/SCN) in collaboration with IFPRI (2000) Fourth Report on The World Nutrition Situation: Nutrition Throughout the Life Cycle (Geneva: ACC/SCN with IFPRI).