Le Devoir

The Biosafety Protocol And The Challenge Of Feeding The World In The 21st Century

Dr. Norman E. Borlaug is a Nobel Prize-winning agronomist, instrumental in creating the "Green Revolution" of higher yielding grain crops. He is a Distinguished Professor of International Agriculture at Texas A&M University and President of the Sasakawa Africa Association - working directly with subsistence farmers in Africa to improve crop yields and implement conservation technologies.

At the dawn of the 21st Century, starvation and malnutrition remain serious threats. The 1996 United Nations' World Food Summit reported that over 800 million people, mostly in developing countries, suffer from chronic malnutrition. This problem is most critical in sub-Saharan Africa where the population of 49 countries are likely to double over the next 25 years.

The crush of human population will soon radically change humanity's relationship with nature. The numbers speak for themselves. During the 1990s, world population will grow by nearly one billion people and then again by another one billion people during the first decade of the 21st Century. A medium projection is for world population to reach 6.2 billion by the year 2000 and about 8.3 billion by 2025, before, hopefully, stabilizing at about 11 billion toward the end of the 21st Century.

The basic food and nutrition demands of this increasing population will put new strains on natural and governmental resources. As in the past, most humans will rely largely on plants -- and especially the cereals -- to meet virtually all of our increased food demand. Even if current, and often inadequate, per capital food consumption stays constant, projected population growth requires that world food production increase by nearly 60% by 2030, as compared to 1990. However, if diets improve among the world's hungry poor; estimated to be at least one billion today annual food demand could increase by nearly 100%.

It took nearly 8-10,000 years for agricultural production to reach current levels - and most of that growth occurred within the last 50 years. Despite this Herculean achievement, over the next 50 years, the world's farmers will have to produce twice as much food and fiber as they do today. Yet, given the pressures of urban expansion, population growth, soil erosion and water pollution, the world's farmers will face this daunting task using less land and fewer natural resources than currently available.

No matter how you look at it, two inexorable problems of feeding the world's people exist. The first is the complex task of producing sufficient quantities of the desired foods to satisfy basic nutritional needs, and to do so in environmentally and economically sustainable ways. The second, perhaps more daunting task, is distribution. Poverty is the main impediment to equitable food distribution, a problem, in turn, compounded by continuing rapid population growth. It is a cycle that must be broken for stable world governments, stable populations and a sustainable environment to emerge.

Tools do exist that can help meet the inevitable demand. For instance, a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that yields can be improved through use of a variety of now available and emerging agricultural technologies. In turn, these technologies can help dramatically improve the economic condition of local farmers and communities, enabling them to achieve greater self-sufficiency and environmental sustainability.

Growing numbers of agricultural scientists agree that biotechnology has an important role to play in helping to meet growing human needs in the 21st Century. For example, biotechnology can help improve crop yields while minimizing potential environmental damages. Years of research in both universities and the private sector, have produced new scientific discoveries with the potential to improve the yield, dependability, and quality of crops in ways that build upon - but go significantly beyond - traditional plant breeding. With this powerful new knowledge, scientists now have the capability to pack large amounts of technology into a single seed. For example they can insert genes that resist diseases and insects, thus reducing the need for chemical pesticides.

Even by incorporating existing technologies today, global farmers will not be able to feed their nations if these new technologies and products do not reach them. Scientists and extension workers in developing countries need training and we must encourage and support development of regulatory safeguards governing research and production, as well as to protect consumers.

Starvation is the enemy, not responsible biotechnology. Across the globe, the world's farmers deserve the full benefits of all of the latest agricultural and bio-science available. Adequate future food supplies are at risk if these tools are not used. Further, without adequate food supplies at affordable prices, we can not hope to improve world health or promote prosperity and peace. This is the reality that the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity Working Group on Biosafety must keep in the forefront of its discussions as it gathers in Montreal this week to draft a Biosafety protocol.