Amid a situation of high food prices posing new challenges for poor net food-importing countries, biofuel crops displacing food crops out of cultivation and the stalemate in the WTO negotiation, the director of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), Bob Watson, has some sane words??Business as Usual is not an Option?.
IAASTD, in a report released last week, said: ?Successfully meeting development and sustainability goals and responding to new priorities and changing circumstances would require a fundamental shift in agriculture knowledge, science, technology, policies, institutions, capacity development and investment. Such a shift should recognise and give increased importance to the multifunctionality of agriculture, accounting for the complexity of agricultural systems within diverse social and ecological contexts.?
The global agriculture situation was assessed by as many as 400 experts and considered by 64 national governments at the plenary session of IAASTD last week before the executive summary of the synthesis report was released.
The report called for policy options to end subsidies that encourage unsustainable practices and use of market and other mechanisms to regulate and generate rewards for agro/environmental services for better natural resources management and enhanced environmental quality. These include incentives to promote integrated pest management and environmentally resilient germplasm management, payments to farmers and local communities for ecosystem services, facilitating and providing incentives for alternative markets for green products, certification for sustainable forest and fisheries practices and organic agriculture and strengthening of local markets.
About biofuel programme, the IAASTD report said, ?The diversion of agricultural crops to fuel can raise food prices and reduce our ability to alleviate hunger?.From an environmental perspective, there is considerable variation, uncertainty and debate over the net energy balance and level of GHG emissions. In the long-term, effects on food prices may be reduced, but environmental effects caused by land and water requirements of large-scale increases of first generation bio-fuels production are likely to persist and will need to be addressed.?
IAASTD, however, pleaded for the second generation bio-fuels like cellolosic ethanol and biomass-to-liquid as a cheaper option and that which would not affect food security.
On transgenic technology and use of genetically modified crops, the IAASTD says assessments of risks was lagging behind the development of such crops ?There is a wide range of perspectives on the environmental, health and economic risks and benefits of modern biotechnology, many of which are yet unknown,? it said .
The use of patents or intellectual property rights for transgenes and transgenics poses problems like driving up the costs, not allowing farmers to save seeds, exchange and sale, restricting further research by others and can also invite legal problems for farmers in some cases.
The IAASTD report concluded that the benefits of modern agriculture has not reached uniformly across countries.