THE GREEN REVOLUTION AND GREEN BIOTECHNOLOGY IN AFRICA:

Paper given at CORDIA, the EuropaBio convention in Vienna, Austria,  2-4 December 2003

Missed One Revolution, Don't Make It Two!

by Thomas R. DeGregori*

University of Houston

Asking an American who is a passionate advocate of biotechnology, what is Europe's role in facilitating biotechnology in Africa, might be considered a loaded question. In contexts other than this one which is honestly seeking solutions, it might draw an inappropriate inflammatory answer from someone whose first trip to Africa was over forty years ago and who has seen African famine first hand. Being that I am an American on the panel with the Head of Cotton Research from INERA in Burkina Faso, I could get an equally incendiary response concerning the devastating impact of U.S. cotton subsidies on African cotton growers. This leads me to my first point is that both Europe and North America could help Africa (and much of the rest of the developing world) if they would stop doing engaging in various forms of restrictive trade policies such as subsidies and needlessly prohibitive import requirements. This is not much of a start but in many respects, it is a very necessary first step without which many of the other steps are not possible. We need not go into detail on these since they have been widely discussed in other forums concerning WTO trade negotiations.

The second point of my presentation involves creating a better understanding of the agricultural transformations that have occured over the last forty years. I will argue that there is widespread misinformation about the Green Revolution and that there is a definite continuity between this misinformation and the fears and phobias about biotechnology and its potential. As many observers have been pointed out, those who most assiduously propagate the fears of new technology in food production are the ones who have been the major beneficiaries of technological change. I am not advancing some neocolonialist argument that peoples outside Europe and North America do not have any original ideas of their own but it should come as no surprise to anyone that the international media is largely dominated by developed country institutions with many of our anti-technology, anti-science phobias being media driven. Nor is it elitist to argue that the public fears of transgenic food crops are also media driven and did not arise spontaneously from an enlightened public. Over the last half century or more, there has been a growing public concern over "chemicals" (meaning industrially produced chemicals and often simply assumed to be carcinogenic) and "mutating" radiation. How else, other than media campaigns can one explain the almost total lack of concern about food stuffs that are result of mutation breeding using carcinogenic chemicals or gamma rays and other techniques altering the ploidy or chromosomal structure, tissue culture or somoclonal variation, embryo rescue, protoplastic cell fusion etc. Of course, if the public had zero tolerance for the plants produced by these methods and animals fed with them, they would have problems finding anything to eat since these types of breeding have been going on for most of the past century and are part of the fabric of modern food production. In other words, using carcinogenic chemicals or radiation in plant breeding has caused little if any concern as activists NGOs have not chosen to raise a public alarm but there is concern over transgenics which involves neither "chemicals" (in the activist use of that term) or radiation. The public is also concerned about the use of irradiation for food safety.

Currently there is a rear guard action against the Green Revolution. This is largely an academic phenomenon in developed countries with a scattering of academic/intellectuals in developing countries with a particularly large concentration in India. The "organic" food movement is of course a reaction to modern agronomy and is a growing phenomenon. These movements are unlikely to reverse the Green Revolution but they are having an effect on overall donor support for the intentional agricultural research that is essential for sustaining the progress that has already been made in a world of expanding population (even at a decelerating rate) making greater demands on food production. The biotech potential in food production has been called the "double Green Revolution" being seen as a necessary next step for continued forward movement particularly as there is some evidence that continued gains in output have been slowing. The term is appropriate since many of the types of things that transgenics is accomplishing today were also part of the Green revolution advances. No one to my knowledge is suggesting that the varieties of modern plant breeding that have come to be called conventional breeding be abandoned but that transgenic become one more technique to find ways to feed a world in which hunger continues to exist.

As I have been going to Asia almost as long as I have been going to Africa, the contrast to me could not be greater between the two regions. One largely had a Green Revolution; the other did not. One can easily exaggerate the differences and the uniformity of the two regions but it is still not far wrong to contrast the large areas of successful transformation in food production in Asia with the stagnant or often declining per capita production in Africa. Unfortunately, many from Europe and North America who passionately claim to speak for Africa, do not seem to have learned the lessons of the agricultural transformation of the last decades and where it has happened and where it has not. Furthering the biotech revolution requires us to spend at least a modicum of effort to defend the Green Revolution upon which biotechnology will build.

SAVE THE SEED has become the battle cry of those who claim to speak for the world's poor. They assert that the vast majority of the world's farmers only plant seeds from their previous harvest as those who went before them have been doing for the several millenniums since agriculture began in their region. In other words, somehow African farmers are going to have to raise yields using the same seeds which have failed to lift them out of poverty and frequent peril. It is true, given the low rates of fertilizer use on Africa, that there is room for further increases in output with the current system of food production if water, fertilizer, pesticides and the credit to acquire them can be obtained. However helpful this could be, it is difficult to imagine that it would raise output sufficiently to both reduce hunger and feed a growing population. Given the continuing obstacles to getting the farmer the full complement of inputs, the recent reports on biotechnology in Africa stress the importance of breeding plants more efficient in the use of inputs.

Currently, the lowest application rates for fertilizer are in Africa. Where the "nutrient balance is negative for most crops and cropping systems:"

To critics of modern agronomy, farmers must be weaned from their chemical dependency and return to more "natural" or "organic" ways of cultivation that is "harmony with nature." Although there is no agriculture anywhere in the world that is totally "chemical free" in the sense of the critics use of that term which includes synthetic fertilizer, Africa is clearly the closest approximation to that condition and the continents problems of food production reflect that fact.

The annual loss of nutrient in Africa is "equivalent to US$4000 million in fertilizer." These are rates of nutrient depletion that "are several times higher than Africa's (excluding Rep. of South Africa) annual fertilizer consumption, which is 0.8 million t N, 0.26 million t P and 0.2 million t K" (Kelemu et al. 2003, see also FAO 1994 and Smalling et al. 1997). The "traditional way" of overcoming soil nutrient depletion by applying mineral fertilizer is rendered difficult by fertilizer cost which is "2 to 6 times as much as those in Europe, North America or Asia" (Kelemu et al. 2003). Thus there is a need to use the tools of modern plant molecular biology to develop cultivars that are more efficient in nitrogen use (Rao and Cramer 2003, see also ECA 2002).

In agriculture, we are concentrating nutrient that is also nutrient for birds, rats, insects, fungus, bacteria and viruses. In a word we have to protect the plant which historically has required a "pesticide" of some sort or another in addition to the plant's natural defenses. When we grow a plant in one location and eat it in another, we are mining and transporting soil nutrient which has to be replenished. If nature doesn't provide sufficient nutrient in usable form as is the case with nitrogen, then humans have to produce it (Smil 2000 and 2001).

The opposition to the use of green biotechnology in Africa or elsewhere, has deep roots in previous beliefs about science, agriculture, and food production that go back at least two centuries. I have explored this history elsewhere (DeGregori 2003). We need not concern ourselves here with this longer history. For the Green Revolution of the last forty years, there is a direct continuity in beliefs and often in participants. In my judgement then, it is not possible to carry forward a policy discussion on green biotechnology for Africa or elsewhere without some understanding of widespread and deeply ingrained views about the Green Revolution.

A common claim of those critical of Green Revolution is that the HYV (high yielding varieties) seeds "require" more fertilizer, water and pesticides when in fact they outperform the traditional varieties at most any level of inputs. Add to these three factoids about the Green Revolution, the fear that modern monoculture is a global catastrophe waiting to happen from an as yet non-existent pathogen. These beliefs are not only wrong, they are exactly contrary to what can be factually demonstrated to be the case. The oft stated "failure of the Green Revolution" drives much of the opposition to biotechnology in Africa or elsewhere. We need to examine each of these in turn starting with the alleged greater water needs.

The FAO adds:

Overall, The best estimates are that "the water needs for food per capita halved between 1961 and 2001" (FAO 2003 28).

Higher yields "require" more fertilizer as the more nutrient that is extracted from the soil, the more that has to be replaced. Genetic engineering offers further opportunities for more efficient fertilizer use by increasing the photosynthetic efficiency of plants (Surridge 2002, 577).

Norman Borlaug in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech states: "If the high-yielding dwarf wheat and rice varieties are the catalysts that have ignited the Green Revolution, then chemical fertilizer is the fuel that has powered its forward thrust ... The new varieties not only respond to much heavier dosages of fertilizer than the old ones but are also much more efficient in their use" (Borlaug 1970).

Not only are the Green Revolution plants more efficient in fertilizer use but equally important has been the improvement in the use and application of fertilizer. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer costs money, so as one would expect, farmers attempt to become more efficient in its use.

In point of fact, the Green Revolution seeds turn out to be more disease resistant (as plant breeders have added multiple disease resistant genes - gene stacking) requiring less pesticides. "Increasingly, scientists breed for polygenic (as opposed to monogenic) resistance by accumulating diverse, multiple genes from new sources and genes controlling different mechanisms of resistance within single varieties (Smale 1997, 1265, see also Cox and Wood 1999, 46). The coefficient of variation for rice production has been steadily decreasing for the last forty years which would seem to indicate the new technologies in agricultural production are not as fragile as some would have us believe (Lenné and Wood 1999, see also Wood and Lenné 1999a&b and Evenson and Gollin 1997). This has also been the case for wheat. "Yield stability, resistance to rusts, pedigree complexity, and the number of modern cultivars in farmers' fields have all increased since the early years of the Green Revolution" (Smale and McBride 1996).

Modern monoculture is central to the unverified claims about modern varieties being less disease resistant (DeGregori 2003c). The "natural ecosystems" from which important cereals were domesticated were often moncultures - "extensive, massive stands in primary habitats, where they are dominant annuals." This includes the "direct ancestors of our cereals Hordeum spontaneum (for barley), Triticum boeoticum (for einkorn wheat) and Triticum dicoccoides (for emmer wheat)" which "are common wild plants in the Near East" (Wood and Lenné 1999, 445).

Some of the most important and widely planted high-yielding varieties (HYVs) were bred from a multiplicity of varieties from different countries creating varieties that were and are multiple-disease resistant but also were better able to withstand other forms of stress. Most critics do not seem to realize that the Green Revolution was not a one shot endeavor for wheat and rice but an ongoing process of research for new varieties and improved agricultural practices. In addition to the planting of disease resistant varieties, there is an international network of growers, extension agents, local, regional, national and international research stations, often linked by satellite that has successfully responded to disease outbreaks that in earlier times could well have resulted in a global crisis. Historically, the farmer had access to a limited number of local varieties. Today, should there be a disease or other cropping problem, the farmer can be the beneficiary of a new variety drawn from seed bank accessions that number into the 100s of thousands for major crops like rice. Increasingly, farmers may have the benefits of a variety with a transgene from another species.

To Sanders, "multiple-gene resistance and other techniques are preferable when they are available" but we "use what we have if it works, and we anticipate breakdowns" (Sanders 2001). This pragmatic process of breeding in plant protection is not only vital for agriculture; there is no alternative to using a variety of modern crop protection strategies. For an understanding of modern agricultural ecosystems, Wayne Parrot has the right "take-home message."

Parrot wisely adds:

If one seeks to understand plant diversity at the genomic level, an argument can be made for increased diversity. "Some modern varieties of rice and wheat have very comprehensive pedigrees and can be highly genetically diverse. For example, `IR 66' has 42 landraces in its parentage with multiple disease and pest resistances, drought tolerance and earliness" while another variety has 49 landraces including multiple disease and pest resistances (Hargrove et al. 1988, cited in Polaszek, Riches and Lenné 1999, 288). Thanks to modern plant breeding, wheat has a diversity which it previously lacked. "Wheat lacks diversity because it evolved through a natural genetic bottleneck. It has always teetered on precariously narrow genetic base" (Cox 1998, cited in Cox and Wood 1999, 44-45). Bread wheat was the accidental "unnatual" crossing of einkorn and then emmer wheat with another species.

In their study of the "wheat's origins and the flows of germplasm between various regions of the world," Smale and McBride examine "patterns of bread wheat diversity in farmers' fields and evidence of genetic variation from breeding programs."

Hybrid maize has become an increasingly important crop with maize production expected to exceed that of other grains sometime in the next twenty years. Of the roughly 200 million maize farmers in the world, circa 98% are in the developing world. In many developing countries, hybrid maize has become "the predominant seed type ... for example 84% of the 105 million Chinese maize farmers buy hybrid seed, and 81% of all maize seed used in Eastern and Southern Africa is hybrid" (James 2003).

In spite of vociferous opposition, the planting of transgenic crops is increasing worldwide, more in developed countries than developing countries, as farmers find that higher final output from either increased yield or reduced crop loss, makes it worthwhile to pay a premium for commercial transgenic seeds. Whatever the environmental problems of the much maligned Green Revolution technologies in wheat and rice, and they are real, the increase yields from these and related gains from modern agronomy in other crops such as hybrid maize have had the effect of minimizing the amount of land that had to be brought under cultivation. It is widely understood that the single most important cause of species extinction is loss of habitat. In the last forty years of the twentieth century, the world's population slightly more than doubled from about 3 billion to over 6 billion people while global food supply increased to about 270 percent of its 1960 level resulting in a 30 to 40 percent increase in per capita output. This was achieved even though the land under cultivation increased from 1.4 billion hectares to only 1.5 billion hectares.

One hates to imagine all the famine, disease and death that would have resulted if these spectacular yield increases had not happened or the destruction of wildlife habitat from desperately hungry people trying to grow food for themselves and their family. "Some estimates of land savings due to all past research efforts and agricultural intensification amount to more than 400 million ha. Mineral fertilizers may have provided 30-50% of these savings and have therefore made a major contribution to the preservation of tropical rainforests and biodiversity" (Norse 2003, see also Pinstrup-Andersen, 2003). Whatever environmental problems (as well as those of poverty and hunger) that we face today, they will be greatly compounded unless modern agronomy is able to continue to facilitate sustainable increases in yields using the technologies that are increasingly being opposed in the name of protecting the environment.

Central to the anti-modern agronomy mythology is the belief that the Green Revolution technologies have led to a vast increase in mono cropping, worsened the nutritional quality of the human diet and fostered a mentality which has been pejoratively called "monocultures of the mind" (Shiva 1993). If Shiva thought about what she was saying and checked the data on health in India, she might have trouble explaining the following data cited by Nanda:

One activist, Alex Wijeratna of ActionAid, generalizes the nutritional attack against the Green Revolution by claiming that: "Two billion people now have diets less diverse than 30 years ago. The Green Revolution stripped out the micro nutrients and encouraged moncropping" (Wrong 2000). Rice has had an association with monoculture long before the Green Revolution. It might therefore come as surprise to many that "rice harvested area (hectares under rice multiplied by the number of croppings per year) has declined as a percentage of total crop harvested area in nearly all Asian rice-growing economies since 1970" (Dawe 2003, 33). For example, rice in China went from a 0.24 share of total crop area harvested in 1970 to 0.18 in 2001 while Vietnam went from a 0.75 to a 0.62 share in 2001 in the same period in becoming the second largest rice exporter in the world to Thailand which went from 0.64 share to 0.57 share. "Thus, if some farmers increasingly specialized in rice, others must have diversified into other crops -- and done so over a larger harvested area. Despite a near doubling of the total rice harvest, rice is now less dominant in Asian agriculture than it was before the Green Revolution" (Dawe 2003, 33). Stated differently, "overall cropping diversity -- the variety of different crops planted -- also seems to have increased since the beginning of the Green Revolution ... farmers in most Asian countries plant a wider variety of different crops today than was the case in 1970" (Dawe 2003, 33). Contrary to popular misconceptions and consistent with our analysis above, Dawe finds that these increases in production have resulted in a decline in child malnutrition. "While the incidence of child malnutrition still stood at a dismal 31% in 1995, this reflected a reduction of one-third from the 46.5% recorded in 1970" (Dawe 2003, 33, see also Smith and Haddad 2001).

Florence Wambugu offers an array of different ways in which various kinds of "agricultural biotech" are already helping African farmers and the enormous potential it holds for future development. African "farmers are benefiting from tissue culture technologies for banana, sugar cane, pyrethrum, cassava and other crops" with a variety of other "transgenic technologies in the pipeline," particularly for crop protection (Wambugu 1999, 15). Not to use biotechnology does not mean avoiding "exploitation," in her judgement. On the contrary, African countries must "participate as stakeholders in the transgenic biotechnology business" (Wambugu 1999, 16, see also for Juma 2000a,b and Pinstrup-Andersen 1999b).

Florence Wambugu spoke for developing countries in attacking "opposition to gene technology as a northern luxury" (quoted in Butler 1999, 360, see also Wambugu 1999).

(Wambugu, quoted in Butler 1999, 360)

Stated differently:

Pinstrup-Andersen and Cohen see a critical need for research in biotechnology "to focus on the problems of small farmers and poor consumers in developing countries." Strong public sector involvement is needed to prevent the development of a "scientific apartheid" in which "cutting edge science becomes oriented exclusively toward industrial countries and large-scale farming" (Pinstrup-Andersen and Cohen 2000, 165).

Both critics and many enthusiastic advocates of genetically modified foodstuffs argue that most of the advances in this technology, particularly those made by private sector firms, primarily benefit farmers in developed countries (Pinstrup-Andersen 1999a, 3). True though this may be, the irrational criticism of the technology diminishes support for public funding of agricultural biotechnology research that could bring its benefits to African and other third world farmers, as was brought to many Asian and other farmers by the green revolution. One of the potential great virtues of biotechnology is that it is "packaged technology in a seed" that allows its benefits to be realized without "changing local cultural practices" (Wambugu 1999, 16 and Wambugu 2000).

An ironic twist to what is called the "precautionary principle," the embodiment of it into biosafety trade rules excludes pharmaceuticals. Florence Wambugu asks "why there should be different standards for crops and pharmaceuticals, particularly in Africa where the need for food is crucial for survival? " Having "missed the green revolution," Africa cannot afford to lose the opportunity to realize the benefits of biotechnology (Wambugu 1999, 15). What is critical for Africa and other developing areas is that they be "stakeholders" in biotechnology and other emerging technologies so they have some control over its development and use.

African farmers have long been planting hybrid maize, as maize has become a major food crop in Africa while higher yielding hybrid rice (15 to 20% higher) has been spreading throughout Asia, including about half the rice acreage in China (Byerlee and Eicher 1997 and Normile 2000). They are used to going into the marketplace to buy new seeds; doing so for GM seeds would not be new and would be welcomed if the increase in usable output warranted it. Hybrids are the product of conventional breeding which will remain an important tool in developing new food crops. I have argued that technologies "coexist," meaning in this case, the numerous techniques of biotechnology will add to our ability to develop the food crops to feed a growing world population without necessarily crowding out previous techniques that remain effective (DeGregori 1985, 39). Humans cannot intelligently overlook any feasible research and development methods that will help to provide the world's population with more food and better nutrition.

Africa is where the need is clearly greatest and progress has been far and away the slowest. For example, from 1970 to 1995, the percentage of malnourished children in the world declined by 15 percentage points from 46.5% to 31 percent, while the absolute number declined from 204 million to 167 million. In Sub-Saharan Africa the decline of 4 percentage points was overwhelmed by population growth, which has resulted in a 70% increase in the absolute number of malnourished children in Africa while the rest of the world continues to experience declines in the absolute numbers of malnourished children in addition to the percentage decline. In addition, aflatoxins are still a scourge in poor areas such as West Africa where there is evidence that fungal infested food is stunting the growth of children (Gong et al. 2002, IITA 2002).

Unfortunately, African countries do not have the per capita income of Japan or the size of China and India as a basis for providing sufficient resources to be as effective in their biotech efforts as the Asian countries. African countries will have to engage in a number of cooperative actions to take advantage of the potential of biotechnology (Weber 2000).

It is still too often the case that humans occupying the land in low-income tropical regions, such as parts of Africa, are considered less important than the flora and fauna that is to be protected. "In 1985, Africa had 443 publicly protected areas encompassing 217 million acres of land. Facing international pressure, virtually all African countries have since increased their protected land base" (Geisler 2002). There are 380 million acres of protected land in Africa including 14 African countries that have more land in conservation than under cultivation. There are estimates of the number of humans that have been displaced; they range from 900,000 to 14.4 million. Even the lower bound number is astounding and it is likely that the real figure is considerably higher. The displaced have been called "endangered humans" and "invisible refugees" (Geisler 2002, 80-81).

Charles Geisler recognizes the need for conservation and "green consciousness." He still has powerful comments about the injustice in the ways that it is most often carried out.

Still, wildlife conservation in Africa is not only a good in and of itself but it can be a useful source of tourist income that benefits a country if it can increase its yields in the land that remains under cultivation. Stephen Budiansky argues that affluence may be the best way to preserve the environment (Budiansky 2002a&b). "Even with its vastly greater amount of meat produced and its large exports, the US uses less total agricultural land (arable plus grazing) per person than does sub-Saharan Africa" (Budiansky 2002a, 33).

This lengthy excursus on the Green Revolution leads to my third point. Forty years ago, Asia was the area of the world most prone to catastrophic famine and where there was concern about run away population growth. In the complex mix of policies that have transformed most of Asia, public funding of research and extension from international donor and domestic sources played a key role in this transformation. It was also an international cooperative effort in the scientists who carried this research. Though many have were skeptical of about Asia's future, there was a prevailing belief in the benefits of scientific research in agriculture. We need to rally international support for publicly funded agricultural biotechnology research. An important element of this public mobilization requires defending past accomplishments as a basis for arguing that continued support has a real possibility of success.

I am confident that my fellow panelists favor expanded international and domestic public support of agricultural biotechnology research. The issue is how to we mobilize this support in the wake of the torrents of misinformation on biotechnology and on the Green Revolution. Monday of this week was International AIDs awareness day which was preceded by a large concert with some of the world's leading pop stars performing and raising money and consciousness about AIDs. Most AIDs medication carries on its label the admonition - take with food. Yet the idea of getting an international pop stars to raise money for the biotechnology research necessary to raise the food to make the medication effective, is simply unthinkable. Many of these stars would be far more likely to be singing for a concert in opposition to biotechnology than for it. Someway, somehow, we have to make the public aware of the hundreds of millions of people around the world that are alive and better fed because of the Green Revolution and the very real possibility of a similar transformation in Africa if biotechnology is supported and allowed to play its role in African food production. However worthy other proposals for helping Africa utilize biotechnology may be, their ability to be effectively implemented will require considerable transformation of public knowledge and the public attitudes that reasonably accurate information can shape.

We have a variety of technologies to make all forms of African agriculture more environmentally sustainable if we have the right incentives to promote them and can continue the research necessary to increase output without bringing large amounts of new land under cultivation. The task of development economists is to find lower cost affordable ways of adapting these technologies to allow the poorer farmers of the Africa to both feed their families and preserve their environment. It is the task of all of us to create the public framework that allows this to happen.

*Professor of Economics, University of Houston

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