What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Plant scientists urge Europe to stop blocking GM trials on political grounds, EurActiv

Borlaug Dialogue Highlights, World Food Prize

The Love Life of Plants, Gates Notes

‘Silent revolution’ of biotechnology food will surpass GMO products: Greenpeace report, Raw Story

World losing 2,000 hectares of farm soil daily to salt damage: UN University, EurekAlert

‘Climate-Smart Agriculture’: the Emperor’s new clothes?, CIDSE

Can sustainable intensification be the answer to better seeds, soil and family farming?, ICRISAT

World’s Largest Ever GMO Safety Study Set for London Launch, Sustainable Pulse

Even it Up: Big global campaign on inequality launched today, From Poverty to Power

The GMO debate: 5 things to stop arguing, The Washington Post

The homogenisation and globalisation of diets

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that some 75% of the diversity of cultivated crops was lost during the 20th Century and, by 2050, we could lose a third of current diversity.

A recent study by Khoury et al in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, investigated how the composition of crops contributing to human diets has changed over the past 50 years. As suspected by many, diets across the world are becoming more homogenised or more similar with greater reliance on only a handful of crops, notably wheat, rice, potatoes and sugar (energy-dense foods). Wheat is now a major food in 97% of countries. Local and traditional crops, important regionally, such as millet, rye, yams and cassava (many of which are nutrient-dense) are being produced and consumed less. Although the amount of calories, protein and fat we consume has increased over this period, the declining diversity evidenced is cause for concern. We require a variety of foods in our diet to ensure we consume adequate amounts of micronutrients, things like iron, vitamin A and iodine. Some 2 billion people in the world suffer from a lack of micronutrients in their diet, something labelled hidden hunger, which can have severe impacts on health, causing heart problems, obesity, diabetes, blindness, anaemia and goitre, and the list goes on.

An agricultural system based only on a few crops is also less resilient. If one crop fails we have only a limited number of crops to fall back on. The Irish potato famine is historical evidence for this. If this were to happen on a global scale the impacts on human lives would be unthinkable. Climate change is likely to increase the frequency and severity of events which could lead to crop failure: pest and disease outbreaks, droughts and other extreme events. Ensuring diversity in our agricultural production would be a kind of insurance against the impacts of climate change.

But what is driving this homogenisation? It could be our quest for economic efficiency: is it easier and more cost-efficient to cultivate large monocultures rather than diverse multi-crop farms?  Urbanisation, rising incomes, more westernised diets, trade liberalisation, increasing trade of food, multinational food industries and food safety standardisation have all been implicated.

Authors of the paper explain we need greater cooperation between the private sector and public sector, the latter of which have the ability to pursue longer term research in crops important for health and livelihoods while the former dominate the food sector. We also need to conserve and use different crop genetic varieties, which will require public education and investment in gene and seed banks.  In Norway and Sweden diets have changed little in the past 50 years as a result of campaigns to raise awareness about the impacts of food choices coupled with economic incentives such as taxation policies.

Recently, the European Parliament adopted a resolution for EU countries to implement measures to preserve crop genetic diversity in a bid to source varieties that will be able to cope with projected climatic changes. This should complement private crop breeding which focuses on only a small number of varieties. Turning the tide away from a narrowing of diets will require much investment in research, conservation and education. And an even greater effort to mobilise the private and public sectors to adopt a mandate that boosts dietary diversity.

Hidden Hunger: Tackling micronutrient deficiencies

As we wait to hear from global policy leaders meeting at the Nutrition for Growth summit in London tomorrow, we have been thinking about all the different ways that malnutrition can be tackled, in particular agricultural measures than can be taken to boost nutrition.

In a new video story, Alina Paul of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) outlines the extent of micronutrient deficiency (termed hidden hunger) in India. Looking in particular at iron-deficiency, over 70% of children under the age of 3 and half of women in India suffer from anaemia, often linked to iron deficiency. Such deficiencies affect their development and survival.

In order to combat widespread deficiencies in iron, India is taking steps to promote iron-rich crops such as pearl millet, which is high in vitamin B, calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium and zinc as well as being well adapted to drought, poor soils and high temperatures. The Indian government is aiming to reverse the trend of declining millet production by incorporating the crop into school feeding programmes, thereby improving school children’s nutrition and creating market demand. Elsewhere the Home Grown School Feeding programme is making great strides in procuring traditional nutritious food for school children from local farmers.

International donors are also funding research into the development of higher yielding pearl millet with enhanced iron content. HarvestPlus and ICRISAT have partnered with Nirmal Seeds in India to develop and distribute a new conventionally bred, higher iron pearl millet variety. Since May 2012 over 25,000 farmers have bought and planted this seed.

But breeding more nutritious crops is only part of the solution to tackle hidden hunger. Growing a diversity of nutritious crops will help to boost household nutrition. Gordon Conway often references his experiences of Home Gardens in Java (see picture) that grow a wide variety of plants and crops and house different livestock, all of which can be consumed or sold. The M.S.Swaminathan Research Foundation has recognised the importance of local people in fighting hidden hunger and has established a programme of Community Hunger Fighters, village volunteers who are trained to address the major causes of malnutrition within their community.

The Green Revolution in Retrospect

A new paper authored by Prabhu Pingali of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, details the achievements and limitations of the Green Revolution.

The Green Revolution was a product of investment in and diffusion of agricultural research and its largest success was that cereal crop production outpaced population growth, with only a small increase in land area cultivated. As examples, between 1960 and 2000 wheat yields in developing countries increased 208% while between 1960 and 1990 food supply in developing countries grew 12-13%.

Building on the work of developed countries to improve staple crops, the Green Revolution, largely through the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, took high yielding varieties and adapted them to thrive in the conditions of developing countries. Indeed it is estimated that without the efforts of the CGIAR and national programmes world food and feed prices would have been 35-65% higher and average calorie availability would have declined by 11-13%. While these successes sparked further investment in agricultural research and its delivery from both public and private institutions, the post Green Revolution period saw investment in agriculture decline.

As the author points out investment in agricultural innovation is equally important now, particularly if we are to ‘sustain productivity gains, enhance smallholder competitiveness and adapt to climate change’. Evidence shows the returns to agricultural research are as high now as they were during the Green Revolution and in a recent meta-analysis have been estimated at a median annual rate of return of 40-60%.

The Green Revolution, however, was not without its shortcomings. As One Billion Hungry states, we need a new Revolution that addresses the limitations of the first, a Revolution in which there is renewed international interest due to the recent food price spikes.