Source: The Star
For thousands of years, farmers across the globe
have skilfully observed, saved and bred a wealth
of seed diversity, cultivating ever more crop
varieties to deal with the challenges of farming.
The need to save, exchange and pass seed on is
so important to farming that it is embedded into
cultural practices around the world to ensure
future generations can have the seed diversity
and complex farming knowledge they need to
continue to grow food and develop crops.
But recent decades have seen a dramatic
decrease in global seed diversity, for the first time
in history. Since the introduction of the so-called
Green Revolution of the 1960s, alongside laws
that restrict farmers' rights (pdf) to save and
exchange seed, agribusiness corporations have
steadily increased sales of hybrid and GM crops.
Genetic diversity and farmers' knowledge are the
basis of farming; but as corporate seed and
chemicals increasingly replace farmers' own
ingenuity, they are now seen as mere customers.
What was once agriculture is increasingly
becoming agribusiness.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
estimates that 75% of the world's crop diversity
has been lost through this profound
transformation of global food production. But as
Christine Campeau, of the Ecumenical Advocacy
Alliance, and fellow author of a report published
on Wednesday by EAA, the Gaia Foundation and
the African Biodiversity Network, says: "Too
many farmers grow the same one or two
varieties of purchased seed. But if the rains come
too early or too late, too much or not at all, the
entire crop may fail. As climate change
increasingly hits agriculture, farmers are realising
that the seed varieties that they grew, saved but
then abandoned decades ago are the very
varieties that they now need."
In its recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) warns of the
catastrophic impact that climate change will have
on food production. It is clear that the effects of
climate change will be as unpredictable as they
will be widespread. While it may be possible to
predict particular events with some probability
(eg saltwater flooding in Bangladesh and southern
India, drought in the Horn of Africa, and
hurricanes in the Philippines) it is also likely that
regions will suffer from more than one type of
extreme weather pattern. For example, Kenya in
recent years has experienced a wide spectrum of
extremes ranging from drought, heavy rains and
unprecedented cold in concurrent seasons.
It is important to note that the global industrial
food system contributes an estimated 44-57% of
global greenhouse gases to climate change. In
contrast, the world's small-scale farmers - the
ones keeping agricultural diversity alive - provide
70% of all food eaten globally, using just 30% of
the world's agricultural land.
Given the range of challenges that food systems
will face in coming years, it is time for us to think
seriously about how farmers will be able to keep
growing food to feed the world. Not just to feed
ourselves, but for the generations to come.
Policymakers such as the UK environment
minister Owen Paterson believe GM corporations
can deliver the world from hunger and
malnutrition. But Paterson's recent promotion of
GM "golden rice" as the answer to Vitamin A
deficiency ignores the fact that $100m (£62m) has
been spent on a technology still not proven to
work (contrast this with simpler strategies that
have been proven to work - such as simply
growing and eating vegetables).
Farmers today and in the future will need to grow
a wide diversity of crop varieties to spread their
risk and deal with variable amounts of rain,
changing temperatures, saline conditions,
emerging pests and diseases, as well as a
diversity of nutritional and medicinal needs.
Imagine each seed variety taking millions of
dollars and many years before corporations bring
it to market, where it would need to be planted in
huge monocultures to recoup the enormous
investment. The inevitable outcome of this vision
will be the disappearance of global crop diversity,
while farmers struggle to access the seed that
they - and the communities they feed - urgently
need.
It is time for us to recognise that corporate and
GM agriculture is part of the problem, and cannot
be part of the solution. Instead, we need policies
and practices that actively support the revival of
seed diversity and seed-saving knowledge in
farmers' hands, and that ensure this is passed on
to the generations to come.
It should shock us all to think of the wealth of
crop diversity our generation has inherited from
our farming ancestors, and how we have
carelessly squandered this incalculable gift. We
know that climate change is only going to get
worse.
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