The foundation for food security is agricultural sustainability. However, as the following article shows, the current process of economic globilisation and the radically changing pattern of North-South relations are vitiating the whole basis of sustainable agriculture in the South.

A Changing World Scenario

GLOBALISATION is sweeping through the world rapidly. This in itself need not necessarily be a major problem. However, what is of concern is the type and nature of the globalisation process that is taking place, which tends to marginalise the weak and poor, and the impact that it will have on the agricultural sector.

After independence from colonialism, many governments in the Third World tried to devise policies to make their economies less dependent on their ex-colonial masters and on the rich countries, and more in line with national aspirations.

This was only successful to a limited extent. Most developing countries remained the weakest parts of the world market chain, expanding their agricultural commodity exports without fair returns as the terms of trade for commodities vis-a-vis their industrial imports declined continuously. World agricultural trade has remained in the hands of a few Northern-owned commodity trading firms. The attempts taken through UNCTAD to stabilise commodity prices through commodity agreements (and a General Fund for Commodities) succeeded to only a limited degree, and only for a short time. In the past decade most agreements have collapsed due to disinterest by the rich consuming countries, which after all were the principal beneficiaries of the low raw material prices.

If the basic international economic system has remained loaded against developing countries, the only minor offsetting redresses have been in aid and trade preferences (such as the GSP schemes) or concessions (such as less strict adherence to GATT disciplines on development grounds) given by the North to the South.

Even then, much of what passes off as aid has been in the form of loans and has been as much (and probably more) for the benefit of the giver as the recipients. In agriculture, aid facilitated the dependence of many Third World countries on the chemical inputs, seeds and infrastructure projects supplied by transnational companies via the Green Revolution. Funds for agriculture research poured into the CGIAR system and aided the spread of this Green Revolution, which boosted the business of the chemical- supplying companies.

Since the mid-1980s, a wave of political Conservatism has built up in many Northern countries (especially the US and UK), which has radically altered North-South relations from one of cooperation and dialogue (albeit with a touch of condescension) to one of non-compromise, non-cooperation and potential open confrontation.

This trend has accelerated recently with the end of the Cold War. The West no longer sees the need for wooing the South with aid and dialogue, as there is no longer a Soviet camp for the weaker nations to run to. The rhetoric of responsibility to help the poorer nations develop has been rendered empty by the reality of sharp declines in aid and the erosion of the Southís trade preferences and concessions.

Despite the pledges of aid increase at the Earth Summit of 1992, the OECD countriesí aid fell from US$61 billion in 1992 to $56 billion in 1993, and 14 of 21 donors decreased the share of aid as a ratio of GNP. Moreover, a more and more significant part of the shrinking aid pie is being diverted to East European countries, leaving the South with less. In the past two years, the situation has further worsened, with continuing aid cuts in Sweden, the United States, and Canada, among others. In particular, the new Republican-controlled Congress is pressurising for a much reduced role for aid, with a decline in the status of the USAID, large budgetary cuts, and the likelihood of stopping future replenishment of IDA, the World Bankís soft-loans window.

Correcting Agricultural Aid Practice

In agriculture, a serious review of the past and future of various forms of aid (bilateral, multilateral, research, technical advice and projects) can be made a valuable exercise. It could help correct past mistakes and lead the way to 'sustainable agriculture and rural development', a goal which the FAO has adopted but yet to implement effectively.

Forestry and Fisheries

The most obvious important decisions have to be made in the choice of technology. Aid and technical agencies, including the bilateral agencies, the World Bank and regional development banks, and the FAO, have been criticised for their support of and role in transfer of environmentally-harmful technology models, which contributed to over-logging of tropical forests and depletion of fishery resources through trawl fisheries. Besides ecological damage, the adoption of these models has also caused great social hardship to forest dwellers, to rural communities whose lands and water supplies are affected by pollution and soil erosion, and to the millions of small fisherfolk whose livelihoods are threatened by trawl overfishing. The stopping of aid flows and technical support to destructive forestry and fishery projects should be one of the obvious aims of a review process.

Aquaculture

In the past few years, there has been an upsurge of community protests against big commercial aquaculture schemes in many developing countries in Asia and also Latin America. Some of the schemes are supported by foreign aid or loans. The commercial projects produce tiger prawns and other 'exotic' items such as eels, for export to the rich countries. The projects have destroyed the coastline ecology (including valuable mangroves and wetlands), polluted seawater, deprived fisherfolk of their landing areas, depleted groundwater and poisoned farmlands of surrounding villages. Several hundreds of communities and thousands of miles of shoreline in India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, Ecuador and Mexico, among others, are affected. An aid review of such intensive aquaculture projects should be conducted. In their place, small-scale community-managed and environmentally-sound forms of aquaculture, aimed at augmenting local food supply, and as have been traditionally practised in many countries, should be supported.

Agriculture

The most important and controversial area for review is the choice of technology in agriculture. In the past, most agricultural aid has been for promoting the Green Revolution model, which uses seeds with a high response to big doses of inorganic fertiliser and chemical pesticides. These few seed varieties have displaced a wide range of traditional seeds, thus eroding crop biodiversity. There is also mounting evidence of and growing concern with other ecological problems, such as increasing soil infertility, chemical pollution of land and water resources, pesticide poisoning, and pest infestation due to growing pest immunity to pesticides.

These can no longer be taken as an ad hoc collection of individual problems, but should be analysed as symptoms of a technological system in decline. The ecological and health hazards should no longer be considered as only the necessary costs to an economically and technically superior system, because the system's most important claimed benefit, high productivity, is itself now in question.

Firstly, in areas where the model has operated for a longer period, there is evidence of declining yields. This is one factor that led the head of the FAO's regional office for Asia and the Pacific, Mr Obaidullah Khan, to conclude that there is a need to move away from the Green Revolution model and instead phase in ecologically and socially sustainable forms of agriculture. In an interview in September 1993, Mr Khan said that in Asia, the rice farming system using the Green Revolution was in a state of decline and a new technological paradigm was needed to produce more. According to him, there is now sufficient evidence that the Green Revolution model which relies on intensive use of inputs and results in intensive resource use and high waste is not sustainable due to rising costs and falling yields. There is increasing deficiency of trace elements in the soil because of intensive use of mineral fertilisers, whilst continued high dependence on pesticides is also not technologically sustainable.

Mr Khan revealed that recent statistics had shown a yield decline of 1 to 3% per year on some fields using the Green Revolution technique, a situation which was described as 'a recipe for disaster within one generation' by the FAO regional officer for integrated pest control, Peter Kenmore. Developments on some of the best managed experimental farms have added to the pessimism. A recent article in International Agricultural Development reports that on test plots at the Philipines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), varieties which yielded 10 tons a hectare in 1966 are yielding less each year and now produce less than 7 tons per hectare. IRRI scientists attributed the declines to environmental degradation, with irrigated rice land unable to cope. The detrimental changes include a reduction in the period when the soil is dry, the substitution of inorganic for organic fertilisers and a greater uniformity in the varieties grown. These factors are all intrinsic components of the system.

Secondly, there is increasing awareness that the supposed high productivity of the Green Revolution is at best a gross exaggeration and at worst a misleading myth. In her pioneering studies on the Green Revolution, the Indian scientist Dr Vandana Shiva has shown how the hidden costs of the model (in terms of subsidies for inputs and infrastructure, and damage to ecology and health) have not been taken into account; at the same time, the method used to compare the relative yields of the traditional and Green Revolution systems is flawed, exaggerating the Green Revolution output whilst underestimating traditional output.

This analysis is also shared by the FAO's Mr Khan, who in the interview agreed that the apparent benefits of monoculture agriculture (where only a single crop is grown, as in the Green Revolution methods) had been overestimated whilst the productivity of traditionally grown varieties had been understated. In comparing the two systems, the usual method is to measure only the yields of the single crop (e.g. rice) and also only a single component of the crop (e.g. grain) thus neglecting to account for the value of other crops (such as other grains, legumes, fruits etc) and other resources (e.g. non-grain uses of the crop such as straw for fodder and fertiliser; fish in rice fields) in the same farm area in the traditional system which no longer existed or had reduced output in the monoculture system. Using proper calculations, the total yield of the traditional system would be more accurately reflected, and its efficiency better appreciated, whilst the claims made for the Green Revolution would have to be reassessed.

Given the increasing acceptance of the need to move away from the Green Revolution model, it is obvious that in a review of aid policies, care should be taken to ensure that the same mistakes are not repeated. For instance, even as there is rising awareness of the Green Revolution's limits and drawbacks in Asia, the same model should not be spread to African countries, ironically citing its success in Asia without citing its myriad problems.

A Cautionary Note on Aid and Biotechnology With disillusionment setting in on the Green Revolution, it appears that aid for agricultural research and possibly for projects is now turning to the new biotechnologies in the search for higher yields. The potential rush of aid givers towards biotechnology corresponds to the enormous resources put into biotechnology research by commercial companies, universities and some private research foundations. There is need for great caution in this regard, for the claimed benefits of genetic engineering are far from being proven, whilst there is increasing evidence of real and potential risks.

In a recent statement, an international group of scientists have pointed out scientific flaws of the genetic engineering paradigm, showing why it is impossible to predict the consequences of transferring a gene from one type of organism to another in a significant number of cases. This calls into question the value of genetically-engineered crops. Moreover, genetically-modified organisms (and especially micro-organisms) may migrate, further mutate multiply, and be transferred to other organisms and species, and in some cases the stability of affected organisms and ecosystems could be disrupted and threatened.

According to the scientists' statement, the more specific risks in agriculture are that some transgenic crops could become noxious weeds, and others could become a conduit through which new genes may move to wild plants which themselves could then become weeds. The new weeds could adversely affect farm crops and wild ecosystems. Similarly, genetically- engineered fish, shellfish and insects could become pests under certain conditions. There is also a possibility of new viral strains giving rise to new plant diseases. Of particular concern is the risk that transgenic crops may pose a threat to wild plants and traditional crop varieties and thus accelerate the process of the rapid loss of agricultural biodiversity, especially in the developing countries which are world centres of crop origin and diversity.

Another report by an independent group of experts, 'Biosafety: Scientific Findings and the Need for a Protocol' (July 1995), provides details of recent findings of potential serious threats. These include the possibility of certain genetically-engineered bacteria unintendedly killing soil organisms, thus reducing nutrient supply to plants and threatening their survival; the rapid transfer of transgenes between oilseed rape (engineered to be herbicide tolerant) to its weedy natural relative; and the survival and spread of genetically- engineered organisms from containment.

This report and the scientists' statement reinforce the conclusions of other scientists and of environmental groups that the transfer to developing countries of projects or experiments involving genetic engineering could be hazardous, at least until safety regulations are put in place in these countries. There is also the well-justified concern that the development of the new biotechnologies will develop food products which would displace the traditional export commodities of the South.

An expert consultation organised in September 1993 by the FAO in Asia, and attended by senior government and NGO officials, called for a moratorium on the introduction of genetically-engineered products in agriculture until adequate capacity is established to assess their environmental, health and socio-economic effects. They also proposed that the FAO help set up a mechanism to 'ensure that there not be the transfer of hazardous genetic engineering experiments, research and products to developing countries'.

Also, under the Biodiversity Convention, developing countries under the Group of 77 and China, have unanimously proposed that a legally-binding international biosafety protocol be established under the Convention, in recognition of the potential hazards of genetic engineering. Many developed countries are also in favour of such a protocol, the negotiations on which are now under way.

Given the above, aid technical agencies should not yield to the temptation of channelling much of their resources to developing the new biotechnologies as a new technological panacea for rapidly increasing yields in developing countries. To do so would mean that the lessons from the Green Revolution experience have not been learnt, and developing countries could then face a new set of ecological and safety threats.

A Paradigm Shift to Sustainable Agriculture? Where then should aid and human resources flow? If aid policy-makers are serious about attaining 'sustainability' in agriculture, they should give priority support to research and projects on ecological and community-based farming practices and systems. So far, relatively few resources have been made available for this.

As pointed out earlier, the value and productivity of Third World traditional agriculture has been underestimated because of the wrong estimation methodology used in comparing it with the Green Revolution model. Studies should be sponsored to understand the many types of low-input ecological farming methods, traditional as well as modern. Such studies should include analyses of their workings; energy efficiency; use of inputs; outputs of all the different crops, products and activities and the relationship between them; and the nature and use of agricultural diversity. The studies should also incorporate the various problems encountered in practice (such as shortage of organic manure, pest control, water management), and the methods of solving them.

There is a prevailing premise that whilst 'sustainable agriculture' may be good in preserving the environment, it is inferior and grossly inadequate in terms of productivity and thus cannot be relied on to feed the increasing population. This premise could actually be a prejudice, for there is evidence that ecological farming can be high yielding as well, higher yielding in fact than the Green Revolution method.

For India, Vandana Shiva cites the studies of the eminent Indian rice scientist, Dr Racharia, who showed that indigenous varieties can be high yielding, given the required inputs, and that the yields of many traditional farmers 'fall in or above the minimum limits set for high yields and these methods of cultivation deserve full attention'. Dr Vandana concludes: 'India is a Vavilov centre of genetic diversity of rice. Out of this amazing diversity, Indian peasants and tribals have selected and improved many indigenous high yielding varieties. In South India, in semi-arid tracts of the Deccan, yields went up to 5,000 kg/ha under tank and well irrigation. Under intensive manuring, they could go even higher.'

In the Philippines, host country of IRRI and the Green Revolution, several sustainable agriculture experiments are being conducted by farmers, scientists and environmental groups. At an FAO Asian regional seminar on sustainable agriculture in 1993, a Filipino agricultural scientist, Nicanor Perlas of the Centre for Alternative Development Alternatives, presented case studies of successful vegetable and rice farms using ecological methods in the Philippines. In the largest set of adjacent farms totalling 1,000 hectares using the bio-dynamic farming method, there was a yield increase of 50-100% and an increase in net income by farmers of 200-270%, compared to the conventional (Green Revolution) method. Efforts are being taken to 'scale up' the implementation of ecological farming to macro scales involving many thousands of farmers and hectares. According to Perlas, the lessons from the case studies are that sustainable agriculture can be practised in large scale; yields do not necessarily drop without the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides; and a rapid (even immediate) transition from chemical farming to sustainable agriculture is possible if correct technical principles are followed.

Also in the Philippines, the MASIPAG group (an alliance of farmers and university scientists) has pioneered an alternative rice farming method which is non-chemical and uses seeds (developed in its rice breeding stations) which are suited to particular regional weather conditions. By 1993, the group's method was used in 4,200 hectares spread over 23 provinces. MASIPAG's data show that yields from farms using its method are generally higher than conventional (Green Revolution) farming. MASIPAG's average yield per hectare was 4-5 tons of rice (ranging from the lowest 3.5 tons to the highest 8 tons), compared with the overall national average of 2.7 tons and the national average of 3.5 tons for irrrigated rice fields with fertiliser applied.

There are many other examples of successful and high-yielding ecological farming in various parts of the world. Yet only a minute fraction of agricultural aid (in either research or projects) has been spent studying or promoting them. A reorientation of aid programmes in the agricultural sector should therefore give high priority to: l Research on reassessing the concept and measurement of agricultural productivity, giving due recognition to the value of traditional and ecological farming and enabling a scientific comparison with conventional Green Revolution methods; l Research into sustainable agriculture systems, their operations and dynamic inter-relationships, their problems and solutions to these problems; l Support for sustainable agriculture experiments, test farms and demonstration farms; l Support for training programmes for farmers, policy and extension officials, and NGOs on sustainable agriculture; l Support for farmers' programmes and government programmes for implementation of sustainable agriculture, including eventually on a large scale. l Support to farmers, community groups and governments for establishing community-based seed banks to revive and promote the use of traditional varieties, support for subsequent exchange of seeds amongst farmers, and for improvement of seed varieties using appropriate traditional breeding methods.

Since UNCED in 1992, there has been agreement in principle of the need to move away from environmentally-harmful to sustainable agriculture. However, whilst there has been increased interest and awareness of ecological farming, the aid agencies and the international agricultural technical agencies have not taken any effective action to phase out chemical-based agriculture nor to promote sustainable agriculture.

A large dose of commitment is needed by these agencies. They need to put their resources where their lip-service now is, and to take the above measures, at the least, so that greater scientific understanding of sustainable agriculture can be accumulated, and a paradigm shift in policy can then take place. Such a policy shift is important, for sustainable agriculture today remains at the level of anecdotes and case studies. The biases against it are deep-seated, so that policy-makers are still chasing after new technological miracles to feed the world, whereas the essential elements for both sustainability and productivity are already present and need to be rediscovered: the indigenous knowledge of farming communities and the broad diversity of Nature's resources.

Structural Adjustment, The WTO, and Globalisation: A Shifting of Economic Fundamentals

If international cooperation is slipping from the agenda, globalisation based on subjection to what are called 'market forces' has slipped right into its centre. Its characteristics include the erosion of national policy-making in place of policy decisions made by or at international agencies such as the World Bank, IMF and World Trade Organisation; the downsizing of the role of government; an emphasis on basing policies on 'getting prices right'; subsidy removal; deregulation; privatisation; liberalisation of imports and foreign investments. Paradoxically, counter to this 'liberalisation' trend, there is also the forced upgrading of the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) of corporations, which will contribute to greater monopolisation of technology and impede its transfer to the South.

The first wave of 'globalisation' of agricultural policies came with the stabilisation and structural adjustment programmes that about 80 developing countries had to accept as part of the condition for rescheduling their external debts. Typically, the policy framework and packages are worked out by the international financial institutions in Washington, and the indebted countries have little real say in their design. In agriculture, the adjustment package usually included cutbacks in government expenditure on the agricultural and rural sector; privatisation of state marketing institutions; liberalisation towards private land ownership; liberalisation of agriculture imports; removal or reduction of agricultural subsidies; the 'freeing' of food and other agricultural prices. There is continuing debate whether these policies have been beneficial to agriculture, and about their impact on poverty and income distribution.

However, there is widespread concern that the rural population have shared in the general adverse social effects caused by sharp government expenditure cutbacks in health, education and other social and welfare services, as well as by the general deflation of the economy in many countries. This has led to widespread public discontent, and also unrest, in many countries undergoing adjustment, and opposition by several people's organisations and NGOs in both the South and the North. In the World Summit for Social Development (March 1995) and its preparatory meetings, dissatisfaction voiced by developing country governments against structural adjustment was one of the major features. The Summit's Copenhagen Declaration recognised the weaknesses of structural adjustment programmes in neglecting social development concerns; the political leaders pledged (in Commitment 8) to ensure that structural adjustment programmes 'include social development goals, in particular eradicating poverty, promoting full and productive employment, and enhancing social integration' and also to protect the poor from budget reductions.

As part of liberalisation and privatisation, land ownership is shifting from small farmers to private companies, including foreign enterprises. In India, state governments are asked to change land ceiling laws (which had earlier been introduced as part of land reform) to allow the corporate sector to acquire vast tracts of land. Emphasis on cash crop cultivation has converted millions of hectares from food production to horticultural and oilseed production. There is a change from the previous policy of protecting agriculture from foreign ownership: Cargill and Pepsi opened operations in India to produce seeds for cash crops, and have met with serious resistance from farmers.

The recently concluded Uruguay Round will have even more important repercussions than structural adjustment on Third World agriculture. The agriculture sector had previously not come under GATT disciplines. The Agriculture Agreement in the World Trade Organisation covers three main areas: improving market access for imports, reduction of domestic support; and reduction of export subsidies. Under market access, countries are asked to abolish non-tariff barriers (e.g. import quotas, minimum import prices, discretionary licensing, state trading measures) and convert them to equivalent tariffs; and tariffs (including those resulting from tariffication) are to be reduced by 36% for developed countries and 24% for developing countries. There should also be a minimum access for imports equal to 3% of domestic consumption in 1986-88 established for 1995, rising to 5% at the end of the implementation period.

Some concessions

For domestic support policies, the total level of support given in 1986-88 should be reduced by 20% in developed countries and 13.3% in developing countries. On export subsidies, there must be a reduction of 21% (by volume of exports) and 36% (by value of expenditure on subsidies); these reductions are on a product-specific basis. The Agreement does have some concessions for developing countries. The time frame to complete the reduction commitments of developing countries is 10 years (2004) compared to six years (2000) for developed countries; least developed countries need not make any reductions. For domestic support policies, developing countries that have been given special and differential treatment in the Agreement, are allowed (a) to trade in food security stocks at administered prices; (b) to distribute subsidised domestic food aid to the poor; (c) to give investment subsidies and agricultural input subsidies for poor farmers. Also, there are special provisions recognising adverse effects of expected higher food prices on food-importing developing countries and provide for redress via food aid, technical aid to raise agricultural productivity and possibly short-term aid to finance normal commercial imports. Despite these concessions, many developing countries are likely to suffer adverse effects. A recent FAO study on the impact of the Uruguay Round on agriculture concludes: 'The Uruguay Round... will affect the agricultural import bills of all developing regions adversely and boost exports to a lesser extent. Apart from higher prices and shifts in market shares towards the more efficient exporting countries, the Uruguay Round will raise food import bills because of the reduction in export subsidies on those products and will lead to a sizeable fall in the value of preferential trading arrangements.' It also concludes that the Round 'only represents a partial reduction in protectionism' in agriculture and that despite the Round's positive effects, there will be a slowdown in the growth of world agricultural trade to the year 2000, which will be 'a disappointment to agricultural exporting countries'.

A recent study, 'Agriculture in the Uruguay Round', commissioned by the WWF International, questions the claim that the combination of agriculture subsidy cuts and import liberalisation being implemented by Northern governments (as part of their WTO commitments) will halt the cycle of overproduction and export dumping which had brought the agriculture issue to the GATT agenda. Producers in developing countries will continue to face competition in local markets from subsidised imports, with adverse consequences for their livelihood. Exporters among them will also continue to compete in world markets where prices are artificially depressed by subsidised exports from the EU and the US. The report, authored by Kevin Watkins and Michael Windfuhr, says that this failure to tackle the interlocking problems of overproduction and export dumping has serious implications for middle-income developing countries: they have had to reduce domestic support and relinquish import controls on the unfulfilled assumption of real cuts in production in developed countries, which are unlikely to materialise. The tighter rules agreed elsewhere in the Uruguay Round package, while benefiting agricultural exporters, may also make it more difficult for developing countries to protect their farmers and farming systems.

Serious implications

The report concludes that as a result, some developing countries will find it more difficult to improve food security and environmental sustainability. Although it is difficult to assess which countries and communities will be most affected, in general 'the further opening of domestic markets in some developing countries, in the face of still depressed world market prices, will reduce the income of many small farmers, and even their chances of staying in production. Treating food under these market-oriented GATT disciplines fails to take account of crucial food security objectives, such as the access of poor households to food, income, and employment opportunities. It also ignores the failure of market mechanisms to provide for effective environmental resource management.'

Another aspect of the WTO, the agreement on trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs), will also have serious implications for Third World agriculture and farmers' rights. It requires governments to afford patent protection for micro-organisms and biological processes involving them, which include genetic engineering processes and genetically-engineered animals and plants. It also requires that intellectual rights on plant varieties be protected either through patenting or an 'effective sui generis system of protection'. This raises concerns that the knowledge of Third World farmers and indigenous communities that has mainly contributed to the development of crops and the use of plants will not be legally recognised, whilst the corporations which genetically engineer biological resources will be unfairly rewarded. Countries of the South would then have to purchase biotechnology products at high prices (which are facilitated by the patent protection) even though they are the origin of the biological resources (and of the knowledge on their utilisation) used in biotechnology. This is likely to lead to higher cost of seeds and food products in developing countries. There is widespread opposition, including from farmers' organisations in India and the Philippines, against the TRIPs agreement.

Conclusion The agricultural sector has multiple roles in developing countries: to help ensure food security, anchor rural development, provide resources for the livelihood and adequate incomes of a majority of people, and to do this without destroying the environmental base. There are thus two inextricably linked components, social and environmental, to agricultural sustainability.

The erosion of the spirit and practice of international cooperation, especially on a North-South basis, is having serious repercussions on agriculture and on rural development in developing countries. This erosion is most noticeable in the decline in aid. However, the globalisation process facilitated by structural adjustment, the Uruguay Round and the WTO, may have even more serious implications.

There is an urgent need to turn around the tide of conservatism in the North, and rebuild a commitment to North-South dialogue and cooperation that would eventually result in increased aid volume, better terms of trade for the South and a greater balance in global economic relations and structures.

Meanwhile, a start can immediately be made to reform the content of aid and improve its quality, especially in agriculture and rural development. Further, governments, social movements and NGOs in developing countries should unite more effectively to defend their interests in negotiations and institutions such as the Bretton Woods agencies, the WTO and the United Nations.