Putting science to work for food security – Biodiversity is a good idea
JOHANNESBURG, 1 April 2010 (IRIN): – If farmers in Niger, West Africa, get poor yields in a dry year from a strain of pearl millet (hirse), the staple cereal, they can ask their representative organization to contact a research body to find a solution.
The research body might consult a regional organization, and if the scientists then need funds to work on a solution, the farmers will have to approve the project before donors endorse funding.
This bottom-up approach to making Agricultural Research for Development (AR4D) more effective, described as the way forward in helping the world become food secure in the next few years, was endorsed at a critical three-day meeting on agriculture in France which ended on 31 March.
Proactive problem-solving was sup-ported in a com-prehensive assess-ment report on AR4D that formed the backdrop to the conference – the first Global Confe-rence on Agricul-tural Research for Development (GCARD) – held at the request of the G8 group of indu-strialized countries to identify future food production needs and a course of action, said Eugene Terry, one of the authors of the report.
Making science more accessible
The crux of the meeting was making science work for farmers and food security, and the answer lay in how to make the science more accessible.
Most countries and farmers shied away from genetically modified (GM) crops because they did not understand the science involved, said Terry, who was the first director-general of the West Africa Rice Development Association.
– If people are not informed they will be vulnerable to all kinds of propaganda about GM crops, noted he.
The conference identified eight critical areas of agricultural research, with the development of GM crops as a critical part of the health and nutrition theme. – People need to be told about the risks and benefits of genetic modification, and then they can make their decision, said Terry.
GM foods sometimes caused allergic reactions because during genetic modification certain types of protein were introduced into the genetic makeup. – Research is ongoing in trying to minimize the impact of the ‘alien’ proteins, he said, adding:
– Companies that produce GM seeds spend millions to reduce the toxicity, and none of these seeds can be released without FDA [the US Food and Drug Administration] approval, but the poor man is not told about these things.
Food crops “biofortified” by loading higher levels of essential micronu-trients – minerals and vitamins like vitamin A, zinc, and iron, in their seeds and roots during growth – were one of the most effective ways of combating malnutrition, according to researchers who work in the area.
The HarvestPlus Challenge Program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which focuses on developing biofortified crops, said it was one of the cheapest ways to provide essential micronutrients, but most of their work still used traditional plant-breeding techniques.
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