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Agricultural scientists have provided many solutions to hunger, such as higher-yield staple food varieties, but new challenges are arising
This year, the world’s largest agriculture research for development partnership, the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research), is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Carlos Pérez del Castillo, the CGIAR’s Consortium Board Chair, looks at the alliance’s history and achievements to illustrate the role of agricultural research in helping feed the world.
On December 10, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman were awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and women’s rights.
Past recipients of this renowned award include the likes of Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa. So it may sound surprising that, back in 1970, it was awarded to a plant scientist named Norman Borlaug.
In the 1960s and 70s, the world population grew faster than ever before. Terrible famines had struck the developing world, and there were fears that agriculture could not produce sufficient food to feed a growing number of people.
Borlaug believed, however, that science could feed the world. By cross-breeding a Japanese and American wheat variety, he developed more resistant and productive hybrid cereal strains.
His efforts to introduce these varieties into Pakistan, India, Mexico and other developing nations led to much bigger harvests, estimated to have saved about a billion people from dying of hunger.
Unintentionally, Borlaug had started a revolution. Not an armed uprising, but a peaceful one: the “Green Revolution”. Through agricultural research, yields from a wide variety of crops, crucial to food production in the developing world, were made more productive and increasingly resistant to diseases.
With Borlaug’s Nobel prize, global leaders recognised the important role of agriculture and food security for prosperity and peace in the world.
The Green Revolution, 40 years on
In 1971, following in Borlaug’s footsteps, the CGIAR was born; a strategic and unique alliance of institutes working on agricultural research for sustainable development and the donors funding this work. Originally called the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, this organisation has just turned 40.
Over the past four decades, the CGIAR has proven that investing in agricultural research has a cost-effective impact on the fight against hunger and malnutrition.
Take our work with cassava, for instance. This crop accounts for up to one third of the total calorie intake for people in countries such as Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In the late 1980s, CGIAR’s research on how to biologically control the cassava mealy bug, a pest that was destroying harvests in sub-Saharan Africa, saved at least 20 million lives for a total cost of only $20 million. In other words, for every dollar invested, a life was saved.
CGIAR scientists have also developed and scaled up low-cost agro-forestry practices in Africa to regenerate tropical barren soils as productive land. Using local resources (native rock phosphate) and associating nitrogen-fixing trees with crops improves soil fertility and moisture, leading to remarkable increases in yields and incomes of smallholder farmers. More than 400,000 farmers who have adopted this innovative technique in more than 20 countries have multiplied their yields by as much as four times.
These are just a couple of the many examples of CGIAR’s impact to date. From crops to irrigation methods to fertilising techniques, a 2003 study on the impact of our research showed that developing countries would produce 7 to 8 percent less food were it not for our efforts, which have saved more than 13 million children from malnutrition.
Why are people still hungry today?
While agricultural research has provided many solutions - from higher-yield staple food varieties to better land and water management techniques - our world keeps changing. New challenges arise, faster and on a larger scale than ever before.
Demand for food is escalating, with almost 80 million more people to feed every year. Food prices are at a historical peak, hitting the poorest the hardest, and creating social unrest. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO, estimates we have to double food production by 2050 to feed all the extra mouths.
This is no easy task, given climate change and rising pressures on land, water and other natural resources, which are making environmentally sustainable food production harder than ever to achieve.
The world is not only in a “food crisis”. Governments are also battling major economic woes. While the G20 promised to put agriculture at the top of this year’s agenda, its November summit in Cannes was mostly preoccupied with the eurozone’s financial turmoil.
But our current crisis will not go away without a strong, continued commitment to investing in agriculture and agricultural research. Hunger cannot be beaten without a political and societal will to make affordable food for all.
The majority of food producers in the South are small holder farmers who are also the most food insecure. They need to become more productive and more resilient to frequent climate shocks.
Agricultural research focused on the needs of smallholder farmers has a vital role to play in the coming years. The CGIAR and its partners now, more than ever, have to find solutions for better and sustainable agriculture to attain food security.
Future of our agricultural research
Borlaug once said, “Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world.” We have recently welcomed the 7 billionth human on earth, but sadly, close to 1 billion are still going to bed hungry each day.
At the CGIAR, we stand ready to continue the work initiated by Borlaug and countless other pioneers to boost food production, while maintaining our environmental heritage for future generations.
A strategic reform of our system will ensure that our research is better coordinated, more efficient, and focused on delivering results.
But agricultural research cannot feed the world on its own. All agriculture stakeholders need to work in partnership: local governments, civil society, the private sector and the farmers.
In collaboration with global partners, the CGIAR has established 15 international research programmes that put smallholder farmers and the environment at the centre of the research. We focus on delivering innovations, better practices and knowledge to millions while prioritising climate change and gender.
That is how we see agricultural research making a more food secure world. And a more peaceful world, in the spirit of the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Norman Borlaug.
For more information: www.cgiar.org
