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Welcome to ID21: the Development Research Reporting Service UK Department of Development, Institute of Development Studies

Researchers and NGOs produce a constant stream of development research findings, but all too often those who implement development policy are unaware of this knowledge. To bridge this gap, the UK Department for International Development is backing an Internet-based system which links development research directly to policymakers and practitioners around the world. Hosted by the Institute of Development Studies, the initiative is known as ID21 - or Information for Development in the 21st Century. Its key feature is a searchable online collection of short, one-page (500 word) digests of the latest social and economic research studies across 30 key topic fields. All their services are FREE and located at <http://www.id21.org> You can also receive an email newsletter called ID21NEWS which brings you regular updates of the latest research findings. To subscribe to ID21NEWS send a blank email message to: id21news@ids.ac.uk and in the SUBJECT field include the words: Subscribe id21 news.

High-Protein, High-Yielding Corn Developed Future Harvest

The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), based in Mexico, has developed a high-protein, high-yielding corn (maize) which is expected to prevent undernutrition among millions of people worldwide. Corn lacks two essential amino acids - lysine and tryptophan, the building blocks of protein. This new "quality protein maize" or QPM, obtained by traditional plant breeding methods, contains these amino acids, making its protein content nearly equivalent to cow's milk. Eleven developing countries are growing QPM and producing seed for future crops. It is projected that farmers in many more countries will plant QPM over the next several years. The yield from QPM trials is 10% greater than some of the best local hybrid varieties. QPM in animal feed fattens pigs and poultry twice as fast and more efficiently than animals fed on conventional maize. As incomes rise, especially in Asia, researchers expect that the use of maize in animal feed will increase by more than 3% each year between now and the year 2020.

Early funding for CIMMYT for this research was provided by UNDP. CIMMYT is also funded by the 58 members of CGIAR and this project continues to be supported by the Nippon Foundation. Dedicated scientists, Dr Evangelina Villegas, former CIMMYT cereal chemist, and Dr Surinder Vasal, CIMMYT maize breeder, were co-recipients of the World Food Prize for their more than almost continuous work over the past 30 years on developing QPM. Dr Villegas, the first woman ever to receive the World Food Prize, stated, "It is easier and less expensive to convert to more nutritious varieties of maize than to change or supplement the diet I have seen problems from malnourishment is many countries around the world. In hospitals in Ghana, I saw children dying because they didn't have nutritious food. I know our enhanced protein maize will not solve all of the world's nutrition problems, but it is a major improvement."

Future Harvest is a nonprofit organization which supports research, promotes partnerships, and sponsors projects that bring research results to rural communities, farmers, and families in Africa, Latin America and Asia. It is an initiative of 16 food and environmental research centers that receive funding from the CGIAR. Contact: internet site <http://www.futureharvest.org>

"Golden" Rice - More Iron and Vitamin A from GM Rice

Researchers have succeeded in genetically modifying rice to enhance its vitamin A and iron content. This research has been conducted at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in collaboration with the University of Freiburg. Conventional rice grains contain a substance called phytic acid that can prevent iron absorption. Rice grains do not contain beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A. This is one reason why anaemia and vitamin A deficiencies are widespread in regions where rice is the principal staple food. This new modified rice, called "golden" rice because of its yellowish colour contributed by its beta-carotene content, could potentially improve the vitamin A and iron status of malnourished people. Researchers are now incorporating the vitamin A genes into high yielding rice varieties at CGIAR's International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. The private company, AstraZeneca, acquired the commercial rights to Golden Rice in the North, promising to make this technology freely available to farmers in the South. The company speculates that it could have vitamin-A rice in farmers' fields as early as 2003. Many opponents of GM foods feel this does not leave enough time to undertake the socioeconomic, human health and ecological impact studies necessary to ensure the public's wellbeing. One reason the public researchers sold the commercial rights to Golden Rice may be the prohibitive cost of legal and licensing fees involved in obtaining all the patents required to produce the rice.

Contact: "FoodToday", European Food Information Council, 1 place des Pyramides, F-75001 Paris; Fax +33 1 40 20 44 41; email: eufic@eufic.org; website: <http://www.eufic.org> Information on Golden Rice can also be found at <http://www.biotech-info.net.>

NUTRITION AND AGRICULTURE

Ethics, environmental safety, economic development, intellectual property rights...scientists, litigators, consumer activists, NGOs, industry representatives...put them all together in a conference room, mention Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), and global warming takes effect: heated debate, agreement, disagreement, uncertainty, and inability to separate issues which are subject to scientific analysis and those which are related to values, beliefs and politics. A legion of questions surround GM foods. Is GM technology fundamentally different from genetic modification through conventional breeding? Are GM foods safe for humans? What are the benefits and risks of biotech farming? Are current food regulatory systems adequate for GM foods? Should GM foods be labelled? Should other stakeholders besides scientists decide if GM foods are safe? Will GM foods feed the world? Improve health? This SCN News does not have answers to those questions, but provides our readers with as much information about the inter-relationship among GMOs, nutrition, and agriculture as possible in these few pages. Many professionals argue that GM technology is an essential part of future food production, while others opt to solve world food shortages by redistribution, better prevention of loss during storage, alternative farming methods, and applying a rights-based approach to food security. This feature brings together a variety of viewpoints. The links between nutrition and agriculture and the contributions of the international agricultural research community to improved agricultural productivity are identified. Perspectives on the equity (or inequity) of the world food system, the right to food, and the dimensions of food security are presented in several of the articles. The feature defines GM foods, their usefulness for developing countries, GM crop concerns, and safety mechanisms. New paradigms for sustainable agriculture are reported in order to stimulate innovations in this area. The multifunctional nature of world trade and food production and the role of the World Trade Organization are also discussed in this issue. It is hoped that "Nutrition and Agriculture" will serve as a reference point for the exchange of experiences among professionals involved in nutrition programs and projects related to both sectors.

Timeline - High Points in Plant Breeding

~30,000 yrs ago	wheat was brought from the Middle East
1570	potatoes brought from South America
1694	discovery of sexual reproduction in plants
1719	first recorded plant hybrid
1799	first report of a cereal hybrid
1866	Mendel publishes his work with pea crosses
1876	Crossing between species - leading to triticale (wheat x rye)
1900	Start of hybrid maize breeding in the USA
1927	Mutation via x-rays
1953	DNA structure discovered by Watson and Crick
1970	DNA moved between unrelated organisms
1983	First genetically modified plant: tobacco
1990	First genetically modified cereal

Source: The Crops Guide to Biotech (2000) Surrey, UK.

Source: James C (1999) Global Review of Commercialized Transgenic Crops. Ithaca: ISAAA.

The contributions of international agricultural research to major increases in agricultural productivity and incomes in the developing world have been well documented.¹ It is also clear that agricultural research has contributed to significant reductions in malnutrition. For example, a recent study found that increases in per capita food availability were responsible for nearly one quarter of the decline in child undernutrition rates over the past 25 years (Figure 1). But how specifically does agriculture affect nutritional status? Does what people and their communities grow make a difference to what they and their communities eat? This is probably the link that most people have in mind when they think about agriculture and nutrition linkages. But there are at least nine pathways which can be grouped into generic and specific effects.

Generic effects are not sector-specific: any sector that employs a large percent of a malnourished population in a labor-intensive fashion will generate income and employment and would have such impacts. Specific effects are generated because food - not something else-is being grown. Generic effects include (1) income generation for those engaged in the sector and those linked to it, (2) time allocation effects - how compatible are activities in the sector with time investments in nutrition? (3) impacts on household decision-making - does innovation in the sector draw influence away from nutrition decision makers? (4) energy and nutrient expenditures - for certain individuals do the activities in the sector result in the use of more nutrients than they generate? (5) health environment effects - how large are the negative effects on the health environment of the production processes in the sector?

Specific effects include (6) declines in food prices - to what extent does an increase in food productivity lead to a decline in food price? (7) own-consumption - to what extent does the production of certain foods influence their consumption within the grower households and within the grower community? (8) processing and preparation - how can these methods be designed so as to minimize nutrient loss? and (9) plant breeding - what can traditional and biotechnological methods do to improve the food itself to make it more nutritious?

Income Impact of Increases in Agricultural Productivity

Agriculture is an important sector in the poorest countries of the world, and for the poorest members of those countries. Figure 2 illustrates that for countries with GDP per capita below $2000 (at purchasing power parity, 1990) large percentages of the labor force remain employed in agriculture. Agriculture is not necessarily the main source of income for these individuals and their families, but it does engage a large proportion of working men and women. As such, agriculture is an important source of income for individuals directly engaged in it. Recent research has shown² that increases in agricultural output lead to large second-round increases in the rural economy. These effects arise in the sectors that supply the agricultural sector with goods and services and via the demand from those rural non-farm sectors that need further goods from agriculture. In some cases these second-round effects are 50-80% larger than the initial growth in agricultural output. These increases in incomes are important for nutrition in that they enable individuals to purchase more nonfoods and also diversify the diet, and this tends to imply a greater dietary quality. It is important not to equate increases in income with increases in nutrition, however. At the macro level, Figure 3 shows the enormous range in underweight rates for similar levels of per capita GDP (PPP) for 63 developing countries³. At the micro level, recent work (Table 1) reminds us that up to 40 percent of households that are above the poverty line contain stunted children.⁴.

Fig 1. Agriculture's Contribution to Reductions in Child Undernutrition, 1970-95.

Source: Smith & Haddad (1999)

Fig 2. Percent of Labour Force in Agriculture, 1990.

Source: World Development Indicators (1999)

Fig 3. Per Capita Income and Nutrition are Linked, but Not Tightly.

Source: Smith &Haddad (1999).

County	Percent of Households Above Poverty Line With a Stunted Preschool Child
Jamaica	6
Kenya	31
Nepal	43
Pakistan	41
Vietnam	45

Source: Appleton & Song (1999)

Effect of a 10 hour increase per week in	Impact on Body Mass Index of Women (>18yrs of age)
Agricultural work	-0.49
Non-agricultural work	+0.86

Source: Higgins & Alderman (1997)

Changing Time Allocation Patterns

Any activity undertaken by parents or child care-takers is a potential competitor with time devoted to the care of the child. The magnitude of the payoffs to increased time for care (primarily feeding and hygiene behaviors and interactions with the child) in terms of improved cognitive development and achievement is only now being appreciated by the wider development community.⁵ The provision of care to children takes time, and poor people have little non-work time. New technology or institutional arrangements - whether in agriculture or not - will likely affect time allocation patterns of care-givers in unforeseen ways. It is important to try to identify these effects in advance. Results from a vegetable and fruit intervention in Nepal suggest that time allocated to child care was reduced for some households.⁶

Changes in Household Decision Making

If one rejects the notion that household members act "as one" (or in a unitary fashion) when it comes to their preferences about resource allocation within the household, then a powerful alternative model is one where household decisions are influenced by the bargaining power and positions of household members. In general, women with larger asset-holdings - one measure of bargaining power - make nutrition a higher priority within the household. We need to be aware as to how innovations - whether agricultural or not - might affect such fallback positions and therefore how they might affect decision-making within the household.⁷

Impact on Nutrient Requirements

A much overlooked area of research is the impact of new technologies and activities on energy and nutrient expenditure. One of the few studies out of the social sciences on this subject is by Higgins and Alderman.⁸ They ask the question: how does the level of activity in agricultural and non-agricultural activities affect the nutrition status of women in Ghana? They find (Table 2) that women's body mass index is negatively affected by agricultural work and positively affected by non-agricultural work. The significance of this result is magnified by new studies linking poor female nutritional status with low birthweight, and by research linking intrauterine stress to the likelihood of succumbing to diet-related chronic diseases in later life.

Health Impact

Productive activities in any sector run the risk of generating negative impacts on health. The same applies to agriculture. Whether it is irrigation systems that affect the population of malaria-carrying mosquitoes or the population of vectors of shistosomiasis, or inorganic fertilizer use that requires direct handling for precision fertilization or the pesticide that is used in ever-increasing quantities because insects build up resistance; the dangers are there. Note that there can also be positive nutrition spin-offs to some of this activity - for example the use of irrigation water for non-irrigated crops. For the most part the international agricultural community is sensitive to these negative externalities and is busy working on methods of insect control and fertilizer and water use that minimize such negative health impacts.⁹

Impact on Food Prices

In general, increased food production is good for urban consumers, because it will lead to lower food prices. As markets become increasingly liberalized and as transport costs are reduced, price formation depends less and less on local conditions. Hence in some of the better-off developing countries, the price effect of improved agricultural production is likely to be diminished. The numbers of urban poor are increasing so rapidly, however, that even small decreases in food prices will have large aggregate impacts.

Because the livelihood strategies of the poor are so complex, it is difficult to anticipate the total impact of increased food productivity on the rural poor. For the net buyer of food who is also a net seller of labor (a typical wage earner), the news is good: food prices are lower (assuming consumers capture some of the gains in productivity) and the demand for labor is higher (assuming agriculture and other non-farm rural activities are labor intensive), thus generating higher wages. But for the net seller of food who is also a net buyer of labor, is the decrease in the food price and the increase in labor costs compensated for by an increased demand for the food and the lower non-labor costs of production?

Impact on Food Consumption from Own-Production

Two examples from recent IFPRI work show the possibilities and highlight the limitations in interventions designed to affect what people eat through what they grow. First, in urban Uganda, an IFPRI-UNICEF study found that the preschool children in families with non-commercial garden plots were much less stunted than their counterparts in families without gardens - controlling for income, assets, education and a host of other factors. These garden plots made the difference to the diets of the families.¹⁰ In Bangladesh a study showed that innovations in vegetable technology did not result in a significant increase in vegetable consumption of adopting households.¹¹ The direct impact of new fishpond technologies on diet quality was also negligible and may even have been negative as the large fish grown in ponds were consumed instead of the smaller fish that were more micronutrient-dense (note that the fishpond technology did have a positive impact on diet quality through modest increases in income).

There is a large literature base on the subject of food-based interventions for reducing undernutrition, particularly regarding micronutrient malnutrition. In general there is a relatively small set of documented interventions, few of which have been assessed in a rigorous way.¹² Some of the interventions show a lot of promise, particularly for vitamin A.^13,14 They share a number of characteristics: (a) nutrition and health expertise in problem assessment and in related disease control (e.g., to control for Ascaris and hookworm infestation that affects absorption of nutrients), (b) the utilization of new agricultural/horticultural technologies, (c) a social marketing/nutrition education component and (d) attention given to the institutional factors necessary for such partnerships to form and flourish (Figure 4). The outlook for fruit and vegetables as a way of combating iron deficiency is less positive.¹² For populations that cannot afford animal products, and do not have the institutional structures to undertake daily iron supplementation, the options are rather limited.¹⁵

Fig 4. Food-based Micronutrient Interventions: the need for institutional partnerships.

Post-Harvest Activities and Nutrient Availability

There are many ways in which post-harvest activities such as storage, commercial processing, in-home processing, and preparation can affect nutrient availability, including (1) increasing the general use of nutrient-rich foods (e.g., beta-carotene-rich varieties of sweet potato), (2) increasing the nutrient density of foods consumed by infants, and (3) decreasing nutrient losses from the processing of widely available foods. The successful application of such techniques to orange and yellow flesh varieties of sweet potatoes that are richer in beta-carotene has helped to generate a direct nutrition impact in Kenya.¹⁴

Plant Breeding

Breeding maize for higher quality proteins is an early example of the approach. Unfortunately the rapidly changing consensus in the nutrition community as to the limiting factors in the diet (from protein to calories and micronutrients) made the quality protein maize (QPM) experience somewhat demoralizing for the plant breeding community.¹⁶ (ed. note; see p10 for new QPM developments). Despite this recent history, a new generation of plant breeding efforts is now underway.¹⁷ The focus this time is not on protein, but on micronutrients. There are three broad goals and two broad technologies. The goals are (a) increase the micronutrient concentration in the crop, (b) decrease the concentration of absorption inhibitors such as phytic acid, and (c) increase the concentration of promoter compounds (for iron and zinc in particular) such as sulphur-containing amino acids.¹⁸ The new approach uses two technologies: traditional breeding (looking for naturally occurring genetic variation in micronutrient content) and biotechnology (genetic modification of foods and the creation of new foods).

The breeding approaches face many challenges. Can cultivars be found that are high in micronutrient density with (a) little or no yield tradeoff so that farmers will be interested in adopting them, (b) little impact on consumer acceptability, and (c) no negative impact on bioavailability (for the strategies that seek to increase micronutrient density). These challenges are similar to those faced by other food-based interventions.

The Role of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)

Sixteen international agricultural research centers make up the global network known as the CGIAR. CGIAR's mission is to contribute to food security and poverty eradication in developing countries through research, partnership, capacity building, and policy support. The CGIAR promotes sustainable agricultural development based on environmentally sound management of natural resources. The CGIAR was established in 1971 and is an informal association of 58 public and private sector members (see <http://www.cgiar.org/centers.htm>).

The CGIAR micronutrients project involving several of the centers is beginning to produce some promising results.¹⁹ First, two high-yielding, high-iron rices were identified among improved lines already being tested. A human subject feeding trial is planned for 1999-2000. Secondly, a rat bioavailability trial on 24 select genotypes of beans from one center found substantial variation in iron concentration and a constant level of bioavailability. Compared to the traditional breeding work, the biotechnology work is at a much earlier stage, but it is yielding results that are promising. Work by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology's Institute for Plant Sciences and the Rockefeller Foundation has demonstrated some success in introducing genes into a rice variety such that iron and vitamin A concentrations are increased (see p10). The Swiss team plans to collaborate with the CGIAR International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to test the health and environmental consequences of the technology, to evaluate the acceptability of the rice to farmers in terms of yield impacts, and to determine consumer preferences.

The above example is of a publicly-funded initiative. But much of the biotechnology work is being undertaken by the private sector. Here the challenges are for policymakers to search for innovative ways to ensure that the benefits from this work flow to malnourished individuals.²⁰ Is the CGIAR doing enough via these links to enhance the nutritional impact of its work?

A review of CGIAR resource allocation by commodity (Figure 5) is not too instructive in this regard, because of the indirect effects of agricultural productivity on nutritional status. It is not clear for example, that the nutrition impact of CGIAR spending would be enhanced by a move away from cereals to livestock. A breakdown of spending by region indicates that resource allocation does not match the location of undernutrition very well (Figure 6). For example, Asia contains 70 percent of the stunted children in the world, but receives 32 percent of CGIAR resources. Again, however, there may be factors that explain this apparent mismatch. For example, the national agricultural systems might be playing a much larger role in Asia than elsewhere, or perhaps the CGIAR's resource allocation reflects the trends in undernutrition (undernutrition numbers are getting worse in sub-Saharan Africa, and slowly better in Asia). It would be interesting to match the CGIAR resource allocation by region to poverty numbers by region, but unfortunately poverty rates do not yet exist at regional aggregate levels.²¹

It is surprising how infrequently CGIAR documents mention malnutrition. The CGIAR's 1998 annual report mentions malnutrition only twice, and the medium term plans of the majority of the 16 centers do not mention malnutrition, although most of them do list poverty and food insecurity as guiding principles for setting research priorities. On the other hand, the CGIAR has endorsed a nine-center study, coordinated by IFPRI via its Impact Assessment and Evaluation Group (IAEG), to assess the poverty impact of international agricultural research and to identify a series of best practices for future embodiment into a CGIAR poverty monitoring system.²²

Fig 5. Resource Allocation Within the CGIAR, by Commodity

Fig 6. Regional Allocation of Undernutrition & CGIAR Resources, 1995

The last CGIAR-wide meeting on international agricultural research and human nutrition was held in February 1984 at the International Livestock Center for Africa (ILCA) in Addis Ababa (now incorporated into the International Livestock Research Institute or ILRI). The participants of that workshop made 14 recommendations to the CGIAR community.²³ To what extent has the CGIAR been able to adopt the recommendations from 1984? A workshop organized by IFPRI and hosted by IRRI in 1999 reviewed progress made during the past 15 years and concluded with the following statements.

à Few of the recommendations from the 1984 workshop had been adopted.

à Nevertheless, a surprising amount of nutrition-relevant work was being undertaken at the 11 international agricultural research centers attending-much of it explicitly focused on nutrition - but that it was one of the CGIAR's "best-kept secrets".

à The CGIAR's interest in the direct impacts of agriculture on nutrition could increase given its new emphasis on poverty impacts.

à There were many more opportunities for accelerating reductions in malnutrition if only the two communities could find additional ways to work together.

à The traditional plant breeding approach has answered most of the scientific questions, with the exception of the results of human feeding trials.

à The non-staple food-based approaches held promise but holistic design was key - involving agriculture, communication and nutrition professionals from the beginning - as was a rigorous design of impact assessment.

à While improving the micronutrient content of the diet through agricultural research is crucial, agricultural research must not focus solely on this dimension of nutritional status.

à An improved conceptual framework for linking agriculture and nutrition concerns was necessary.

à Advocacy on the potential contributions that agriculture could make to accelerating reductions in malnutrition would be important for the more medically-minded in the nutrition community and the more productivity-minded in the agricultural community.

à While it is more difficult to evaluate the impacts of food-based approaches on nutrition status, researchers must come up with innovative and credible ways of estimating the cost-effectiveness and sustainability of these interventions.

References

1. Kerr J and Kolavalli S (1999) Impact of Agricultural Research on Poverty Alleviation: Conceptual Framework with Illustrations for the Literature. Environment and Production Technology Division Discussion Paper, Washington DC.

2. Delgado C, Hopkins J, Kelly V, et al. (1998) Agricultural Growth Linkages in Sub-Saharan Africa. IFPRI Research Report 107. Washington DC.

3. Smith L and Haddad L (1999) Explaining Child Malnutrition in Developing Countries: A Cross-Country Study. FCND Discussion Paper, 60. IFPRI: Washington DC.

4. Appleton S and Song L (1999) Income and human development at the household level: evidence from 6 countries. University of Bath, Economics Department. Bath, England.

5. Engle PL, Menon P, and Haddad L. (1999) Care and nutrition: Concepts and measurement. World Development. Forthcoming.

6. Paolisso M, Hallman K, Haddad L and Regmi S (2000) Does Cash Crops Production Detract From Child Care? Evidence from Rural Nepal. University of Maryland. Department of Anthropology. Mimeo.

7. Quisumbing A and Maluccio J (1999) Intrahousehold allocation and gender relations: New empirical evidence. IFPRI mimeo.

8. Higgins P and Alderman H (1997) Labor and Women's Nutrition. The Impact of work effort and fertility on nutritional status. Journal of Human Resources XXXII (3).

9. Lipton M and de Kadt E (1988) Agriculture-Health Linkages. Offset Publication No. 104. WHO: Geneva.

10. Maxwell D, Levin, C and Csete J (1998) Does urban agriculture help prevent malnutrition? Evidence from Kampala. Food Policy 23(5).

11. Bouis H, et al. (1999) Commercial Vegetable and Polyculture Fish Production in Bangladesh: Impacts on Income, Household Resource Allocation and Nutrition.

12. Ruel M and Levin C (1999) Food Based Approaches. In: Nutritional Anemias edited by U. Ramakrishann. CRC Press.

13. Smitasiri S and Dhanamitta S (1999) Sustaining Behavior Change to Enhance Micronutrient Status: Community- and Women-Based Interventions in Thailand. OMNI Research Report Series No. 2. International Center for Research on Women, Washington DC.

14. Hagenimana V and Anyango Oyunga M (1999) The Effects of Women Farmers' Adoption of Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potatoes: Raising Vitamin A Intake in Kenya. Research Report Series No. 3. International Center for Research on Women, Washington DC.

15. Gillespie S (1997) Major Issues in Developing Effective Approaches for the Prevention and Control of Iron Deficiency. IFPRI mimeo. Washington DC.

16. Tripp R (1990) Does nutrition have a place in agricultural research? Food Policy: December: 467-474.

17. Graham R and Welch R (1996) Breeding for Staple Food Crops with High Micronutrient Density. Agricultural Strategies for micronutrients. Working Paper 3. IFPRI: Washington DC.

18. Ruel M and Bouis H (1998) Plant Breeding: A Long-Term Strategy for the Control of Zinc Deficiency in Vulnerable Populations. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 68:(2S).

19. CGIAR (1998) CGIAR Micronutrients Project Newsletter. October Update.

20. Pinstrup-Andersen P (1999) Modern Biotechnology for Developing Country Agriculture. 2020 Brief. IFPRI: Washington DC.

21. World Development Indicators (1999) The World Bank: Washington DC.

22. Hazell P and Haddad L (1999) The Impact of Agricultural Research on Poverty Reduction. Phase II Proposal to the IAEG. IFPRI: Washington DC.

23. Pinstrup-Andersen, P., A. Berg, and M. Forman. 1984. International Agricultural Research and Human Nutrition. IFPRI: Washington DC.

Contact: Lawrence Haddad, Director, Food Consumption and Nutrition Division, International Food Policy Research Institute, 2033 K St, NW, Washington, DC 20006-1002 USA; phone: 1-202-862-5600; fax: 1-202-467-4439; email: <l.haddad@cgiar.org; web: www.ifpri.org >

"Humans have intervened in plant evolution over the last 10,000 years by selecting and growing plants that they desire in their diet."

World Food System: Resilient for the Rich, Stubborn for the Starving By Kirit S Parikh Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research

The 'right to food' is in the UN charter. Every signatory government is thus obliged to provide adequate food to all its citizens. Mankind has made remarkable progress in the 20^th century. More people than ever before live longer, are healthier - and eat better and more nutritious food. Yet, by the most recent FAO (1999) estimate, about 790 million persons are food-insecure (Table 1), and the SCN estimates that about 150 million children suffer chronic undernutrition.¹ Why do these conditions persist? Why haven't the efforts of many well-meaning people, organizations and governments failed to eradicate hunger?

The difficulties of ensuring food security for poor persons may be appreciated better by examining the world food system. No matter what kind of shock it suffers: a weather shock, a policy shift by a major country, or dramatic changes in behaviour patterns, the burden of adjustment is always passed on to poor persons. They do not have adequate purchasing power and are not served well by the system. They are too weak to affect it, yet, ironically they are most affected by the system. The system is resilient for the rich, but stubborn for the starving. In an increasingly globalizing world where the role of technical progress (such as in biotechnology and genetically modified crops) dominates, it is likely that the power of multinationals and of technologically advanced countries will increase, while the basic human rights of food-insecure people remain unfulfilled.

Food Security is a Problem of Poor Persons

The definition of food security elaborated at the World Food Summit is quite comprehensive. Food security is a state in which all people have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (author's emphasis). I would add that food should be provided to all as it is their human right. How this is accomplished, through the market mechanism or through government ration shops, is not fundamental to the notion of food security, as long as the indivisibility of human rights is respected, promoted and realized.

One has to note here that the key word is economic access. Once one has economic access, i.e., enough purchasing power, other conditions get fulfilled in most normal situations. The present world food system normally functions efficiently at least in an economic, but not a moral sense. It provides reasonable prices for a wide variety of "adequate" foods to those who can afford to pay for it. Economic access is also not limited to monetary access. It includes access to land, to credit, to education and to health services.

Hunger is primarily a problem for people living in poverty, and not one of food production. Thus, it is generally assumed that if all the poor are given additional income, more food would be demanded and produced. But if more food is produced because farmers are given higher prices, the poor whose incomes have not changed would continue to remain hungry. Thus, food security can be provided to individuals either by increasing their monetary income or by decreasing the price at which "adequate" food is made available to them. Similarly, when food prices increase, as is likely with trade liberalization, the hungry may become hungrier. For the South, world agricultural trade liberalization has led to the acceleration of the rural exodus and further impoverishment of small family farmers. This is due primarily to the lack of strong compensatory regulations to protect them against undue competition from cheaper, imported, subsidized goods.

A country's food security is a matter of poverty and underdevelopment. If the country has enough income, it need not be self-sufficient. It can import the food it needs. But if it is poor and deficient in food production, it becomes more vulnerable to transient influences that reduce domestic production or increase world market prices. The food production potential of the world, even without invoking exotic technologies, is so large^2,3 that the inability to produce food at any cost is not likely to threaten the food security of the rich nations.

Chronic and Transient Undernutrition

What constitutes "adequate" food intake is no longer a matter of contention among nutritionists. Previously, Sukhatme and others⁴ pointed out the difficulties of defining this, noting that metabolic rates, and thus calorie intakes vary across similar individuals (in height, weight, and gender) and also across time for a given individual. Most recently, the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights' Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 12 (see SCN News No. 18 p.41, paragraphs 6-9) defined "adequate" food:

....The right to adequate food shall therefore not be interpreted in a narrow or restrictive sense which equates it with a minimum package of calories, proteins and other specific nutrients....The Committee considers that the core content of the right to adequate food implies: The availability of food in a quantity and quality sufficient to satisfy the dietary needs of individuals, free from adverse substances, and acceptable within a given culture; The accessibility of such food in ways that are sustainable and that do not interfere with the enjoyment of other human rights....Dietary needs implies that the diet as a whole contains a mix of nutrients for physical and mental growth, development and maintenance, and physical activity that are in compliance with human physiological needs at all stages throughout the life cycle and according to gender and occupation....

Table 1. Prevalence of food-insecure persons in developing country regions

Sub-Region	% food insecure population	Number of food insecure persons (millions)
	1979-81	1995-97	1995-97
Central Africa	36	48	36
East Africa	35	42	78
South Africa	32	44	35
West Africa	40	16	31
NE & North Africa	9	9	33
East Asia	29	14	177
South Asia	38	23	284
SE Asia	27	13	68
Caribbean	19	31	9
Central America	20	17	6
South America	14	10	33
All developing regions	29	18	792

Note: Numbers do not add up to the total because of the Oceania region.

Source: Adapted from The State of Food Insecurity in the World (SOFI) (1999) FAO, Rome.

Will increased supply eliminate hunger?

It is often argued that if only more food were produced, hunger would disappear, yet we observe hunger amidst abundance in the world. To better understand why this is so, and to explore the impact of additional supply, my colleagues and I created scenarios using the Basic Linked System (BLS) of national agricultural policy models of different countries linked together through trade and aid. The BLS was developed at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (NASA) with the help of a large number of collaborating institutions around the world.^5,6 The national models and the linkage of them is such that there is no free lunch, unaccounted supply sources, or demand sinks in the system either at national or global levels: A solution for the model is determined after accounting for each Country's policy response to world market prices, trade flows, domestic prices, consumption, and production over a number of years.

The first simulation assumes that a hypothetical country enters the market with a firm intention of selling, at any price, 50 million tonnes of wheat each year which it gets as "manna from heaven" to help poor importers. It does not give it free to others but sells it on the world market in exchange for nonagricultural goods. Not to give a large shock to the system, this added supply increases gradually over five years and remains at the level of 50 million tonnes a year thereafter. A series of adjustments begins as soon as the first additional supplies appear on the market. The international market response is rapid. The major wheat exporters reduce their exports by increasing their stocks, and importers increase their imports. Yet the quantity is too high to be completely absorbed at prevailing prices. Initially the wheat price drops, but this is followed by a substantial recovery at a later date. The second-stage adjustment on the part of the exporting countries, after reducing their exports, is to reduce their production as well. This happens with different time lags, different speeds, and different intensities. This is the general response of all exporters. The real advantage seems to be in the beef market. In almost all countries there is an upward shift in feed consumption: either wheat is directly used as animal feed or producers substitute wheat for coarse grain production. Beef production and exports in the exporting countries and imports in the importing countries go up, and for some years after the shock an upswing in the beef market is created, until prices and production begin to adjust. After some years the price of wheat on the world market recovers even though every year the "manna from heaven" continues to augment supply. The impact on the hungry is miniscule as very little of this additional supply reaches the poor. In fact, the reduction in the number of poor is just 2.5%. This adaptive nature of the world food System explains its resilience to shocks but also its stubbornness with respect to hunger (Figure 1).

If the rich turn to vegetarianism, will it help the poor?

Sometimes it is argued that if only the rich were to eat less meat so that we feed people not livestock, hunger would disappear. A scenario which could free 75 million tonnes of grains to be used as feed is one in which OECD countries reduce meat consumption by half and replace the calories by cereals. As can be expected from the 'manna from heaven' scenario, this also has meager impact on world hunger (Table 2).

Table 2. Resilient for the rich/stubborn for the starving

Scenarios	Persons Hungry
	5th year	15th year
Reference Scenario (million)	580	530
	% Change over time
50 million tonnes wheat more in the world	-2.2	-1.6
50% Less Meat Consumption in OECD	5.0	-1.2

Fig 1. Where do the 50 million tonnes of wheat go?

Is the burden of adjustment always shifted to the poor?

In a set of weather shock simulations we introduced crop failure in different groups of countries. A 5% reduction in crop yields for three years was assumed. Whether crops fail in OECD countries or in developing countries, the number of hungry people in the developing countries increases. The burden is always shifted to the poor (Table 3).

Table 3. Burden shifted to the weak: the poor adjust

Weather Shock Scenarios: 5% Reduction in Crop Yields
	Persons Hungry (millions) (% change over scenario)
Weather Shock in:	North	South
All developing countries	4.8	5.1
India	6.4	6.4

Agricultural trade liberalization, growth and hunger: Is the price right?

Additional advice often given to eliminate hunger is to "get the prices right". Agricultural trade liberalization is advocated in order to get prices right. The farmers would get world prices for their output and would have the incentives to produce more. To examine this, in three different scenarios agricultural trade was liberalized over a five year period by different groups of countries, namely OECD, less developed countries (LDCs) and all market economies (ALL). The results, 15 years after the process was begun, were compared with a reference scenario.

As expected, agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) increased in some countries but decreased in others. The farmers respond to prices. The estimated price elasticity of supply (i.e., percentage increase in agricultural output with one percentage increase in agricultural prices) in the models were around 1.0 for Turkey, Pakistan and Argentina, 0.75 for Brazil, 0.67 for Kenya and Egypt, 0.35 for Indonesia and 0.3 for Thailand. Substantial increases in agricultural GDP did not result in substantial increases in aggregate GDP. Increase in agricultural GDP required additional investment which came at the cost of investment in non-agricultural sector. The higher food prices resulted in increased hunger in many countries as the hungry are often net purchasers of food. Even 15 years after the agricultural trade liberalization was initiated, which stimulated higher agricultural production, the impact on hunger was miniscule (Table 4). The impact on farm income and food security across countries were mixed (Table 5).

Table 4. Does agricultural free trade reduce hunger?

Agricultural Trade Liberalization scenarios by:	Persons Hungry* % Change Over Reference Scenario
	5th year	15th year
OECD	+ 2.6	+ 3.4
-LDC	- 4.2	- 6.4
-ALL	+ 1.1	- 0.3
-Europe	+ 1.2	+ 1.5
-United States	- 0.2	+ 0.4

*in countries with detailed models.

Conclusion

Hunger is beyond the reach of the invisible hand. No matter how powerful the invisible hand becomes through globalization and liberalization, it will still be unable to reach all hungry persons.⁷ The prospects of biotechnology and genetically modified (GM) foods provide an opportunity to deal with hunger, yet at the same time pose a threat to the hungry. If the new technology is shared, if the poor can access it freely, then not only will more food be produced, but it should be cheaper and more accessible. On the other hand, if the gains of GM are appropriated by the rich, then the poor will remain food-insecure. The fact also remains, however, that there is no historical proof that any technological innovation on its own has been, or is, capable of solving a problem - such as hunger - that is so deeply socially rooted in our societal structure. While the invisible hand of the market does not reach the poor, the visible hand of the State has too often turned into an instrument of rigidity, inefficiency and oppression. Perhaps when the UN's human rights approach to adequate food is fully operationalized, then the world food system will become resilient for all people.

Table 5. Agricultural trade liberalization by OECD

Country	Relative Income Per Capita Agr/Non.Agr.	Persons in Hunger during transition
Argentina	Gains	More
Brazil	Gains	More
Mexico	Loses	More
Egypt	Gains	Insignificant
Kenya	Gains	Less
Nigeria	Loses	Less
India	Gains	More
Indonesia	Gains	Insignificant
Pakistan	Gains	More
Thailand	Gains	More
Turkey	Gains	More
USA*	Insignificant	Not Relevant
Canada	Gains	Not Relevant
Australia	Gains	Not Relevant
New Zealand	Gains	Not Relevant
Austria	Gains	Not Relevant
EC	Loses	Not Relevant
Japan	Loses	Not Relevant

References:

1. ACC/SCN (2000) Fourth Report on the World Nutrition Situation. Geneva: ACC/SCN in collaboration with IFPRI.

2. Linnemann H, de Hoogh, J, Keyzer MA and van Heemst HDJ (1979) MOIRA: A Model for International Relations in Agriculture, North Holland, Amsterdam.

3. Higgins GM, Kasam Shah, MM and Fischer G (1980) Potential Population Supporting Capacities of Lands in the Developing World, FAO/UNFPA, Rome.

4. Sukhatme PV(1978) Assessment of Adequacy of Diets at Different Income Levels Economic and Political Weekly, Special issue, August.

5. Parikh KS and Wouter T (1986) From Hunger in Abundance to Abundance Without Hunger Executive Report 13, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria.

6. Fischer G, Frohberg K, Keyzer MA and Parikh KS (1988) Linked National Models: A Tool for International Food Policy Analysis, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.

7. Fischer G, Frohberg K, Keyzer MA, Parikh KS and Tims W (1991) Hunger: Beyond the Reach of the Invisible Hand RR-91-15, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria.

Contact: Dr Kirit S Parikh, Director & Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Gen. Vaidya Marg, Goregaon (East), Mumbai 400 065, India; Phone: +91 (22) 840 0918; Fax: +91 (22) 840 2752; email: kirit@igidr.ac.in

Four Dimensions of Food and Nutrition Security: Definitions and Concepts by R Gross, H Schoeneberger, H Pfeifer, HJ Preuss

Evolution of Food & Nutrition Security Concerns

Global FNS has more than 50 years of history and a sequence of definitions and paradigms. After the historic "Hot Springs Conference of Food and Agriculture" in 1943, in which the concept of a "secure, adequate, and suitable supply of food for everyone" was accepted internationally, bilateral agencies of donor countries such as the USA and Canada, which were created in the 1950s, started to dispose of their agricultural surplus commodities overseas. In the 1960s, when it was acknowledged that food aid may be a barrier to development for self-sufficiency, the concept of food for emergencies and even famines were not caused as much by shortfalls in food production as by sharp declines in the purchasing power of specific social groups. Therefore, food security was broadened to include both physical and economic access to food supply. In this decade, poverty alleviation and the role of women in development were promoted. In the 1990s, concrete plans were defined to eradicate or at least reduce hunger and malnutrition drastically. In addition, the human right to adequate food and nutrition was internationally reaffirmed and committed national governments to a more proactive role.¹ Finally, diminishing international public support by donor agencies led to a reduction in food aid for crisis management and disaster mitigation.

Fig 1. Conceptual Framework of Food Security & Nutrition

Definition of Food and Nutrition Security (FNS)

The definition of FNS has evolved considerably over time.² The starting point of 'Food Security' was food availability to balance unequal food distribution regionally and nationally. It was rapidly accepted, however, that availability, though a necessary element, is not sufficient for food security because food may physically exist but be inaccessible to those most in need. According to an accepted definition, food security is " the access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life".³ Food is defined in this article as any substance that people eat and drink to achieve an adequate nutritional status (maintain life and physical, cognitive, and social development). As a result, safe and clean water is an essential part of food commodities. Food has to meet physiological requirements in terms of quantity, quality, and safety and to be socially and culturally acceptable. In the case of food aid, only food that does not change eating behaviors and is socially and ecologically adapted should be distributed to meet the physiological needs of the target groups. As a result, the following definition perhaps best comprises the current understanding:

"Food security is achieved, if adequate food (quantity, quality, safety, socio-cultural acceptability) is available and accessible for and satisfactorily utilized by all individuals at all times to achieve good nutrition for a healthy and happy life. "⁴

The Categorical Dimension: The Elements of FSN

Figure 1 refers to the first dimension and illustrates the relationship among the categorical elements within the conceptual framework of food security. Two determinants influence the framework: a physical and a temporal determinant. The physical determinant is the food flow:

Availability ® Accessibility ® Utilization.

Availability is achieved when adequate food is obtainable by the public. Access is ensured when all households and all individuals within those households have sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods (through production, purchase or donation) for a nutritious diet. Adequate utilization refers to the ability of the human body to ingest and metabolize food. Nutritious and safe diets, an adequate biological and social environment, and proper nutrition and health care ensure adequate utilization of food in order to promote health and prevent disease. In most cases, utilization is only discussed from a biological perspective. Food, however, also has an important social role in keeping families and communities together. In situations of food insecurity, this role can be achieved only when sufficient culturally adapted food is available within households and communities to meet its biological and social needs.

Stability refers to the temporal determinant of FNS and affects all three physical elements. It is important to distinguish between chronic food and nutrition insecurity (e.g. repeated food shortages before harvest "seasonality") and transitory food and nutrition insecurity (e.g. due to natural and man-made disasters).⁵

The conceptual framework for the analysis of malnutrition has been developed by UNICEF⁶ and is widely accepted internationally. Although mainly used in the context of undernutrition in rural areas of developing countries, it is also applicable to overnutrition in an urban context. According to this framework, the two immediate causes of malnutrition are (1) inadequate dietary intake and (2) unsatisfactory health status. In developing countries, infectious diseases, such as diarrhoeal diseases (DD) and acute respiratory diseases (ARI), are responsible for most nutrition-related health problems. Readily available adequate food, appropriate health systems and a "healthy" environment are ineffective unless these resources are used effectively. As a result, the absence of proper care in households and communities is the third necessary element of the underlying causes of malnutrition. Finally, this conceptual framework recognizes that human and environmental resources, economic systems and political and ideological factors are basic causes that contribute to malnutrition.

This conceptual framework relates the causal factors for undernutrition with different social-organizational levels. The immediate causes affect individuals, the underlying causes relate to families, and the basic causes are related to the community and the nation. As a result, the more indirect the causes, the wider the population whose nutritional status is affected. Figure 2 depicts a simplified causal model of linking nutritional status with ecological determinants at household level.⁷ Again in this conceptual framework, the nutritional status is an outcome of food intake and health status. The underlying causes of health - environmental determinants and health services - have been depicted in different boxes due to their different natures. A reduced state of health may be due in part to tenuous access to nutrition care, poor housing and/or environmental conditions, and is possibly worsened by malnutrition, which predisposes individuals to disease. The distinction between health services and the environment is necessary to select appropriate intervention strategies.

Fig 2. Conceptual Framework of Nutrition Security at Household Level

The four underlying determinants of food intake and health status are influenced by four factors. In addition, each determinant has several contributing factors. For example, as shown further in Figure 2, food availability is affected by food production, purchase and/or donation. This conceptual framework emphasizes the difference between 'food security' and 'nutrition security.' The first refers to the area of causes and effects of food availability, here illustrated as the small, dotted triangle. The latter refers to the entire relationships, depict in the large, lined triangle. Figure 2 suggests a further important point that should be taken into consideration when designing programs. The less direct the relationship between a causal factor of malnutrition and the nutritional status, the more time is required to improve the situation. The two described, most commonly used conceptual frameworks show significant differences. The food security framework emphasizes an economic approach in which food as a commodity is a central focus. The malnutrition framework adopts a biological approach in which the human being is the starting point. Both frameworks, however, promote an interdisciplinary approach to ensuring FNS. Both acknowledge that food alone is not sufficient to secure a sustainable satisfactory nutritional status and, therefore additional aspects such as health and environment must be considered. (Ed. Emphasis) As a result, nutrition is the function of food intake and health status. The conceptual framework of FNS integrates the food security and the malnutrition frameworks. Although each starts from a different conceptual perspective, both arrive at similar program design by using common instruments and processes.

The Socio-Organizational Dimension: FSN in Different Social Levels

As indicated in Table 1, the second dimension relates to the categorical elements of FNS, which are relevant to all levels of the social organizations, from the individual and the household (micro level), to the community (sub-district, district and province) representing the (meso level), the nation and the global level (macro level). The relative importance of each element of malnutrition, however, changes with the level of social organization. At higher levels of social organization the overall political, economic and ecological conditions become more important. Given the diverse nature of the determinant factors of human nutritional status, and the different levels of society in which they interact, FNS will necessarily have to involve aspects of both the natural sciences as well as social sciences. As a result, the relevance of FNS at all socio-organizational levels and the interaction between these levels stresses the importance of an interdisciplinary approach of FNS.

Merging of the categorical and the socio-organizational dimensions: availability, accessibility, utilization of food and the stability of these three elements differ in their nature, causes and effects at the macro, meso and micro level. For example, food may be available in a country but not in certain disadvantaged districts or among discriminated population groups. The seasonality of food availability and utilization, due to cyclic appearance of diseases, may be a rural but not an urban phenomenon. The same merger could be illustrated on the malnutrition framework with its categorical elements: food, care, health, and environment. These four categories, however, have a different impact at different socio-organizational levels.

The Managerial Dimension: FNS in the Project Cycle Management

The third dimension refers to the managerial aspect of FNS projects and programmes. Management follows the classical project cycle, which may have different names in different organizations (e.g., UNICEF uses Triple A or AM - Assessment, Analysis, Action; the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ/DWHH) uses: Project Cycle Management or PCM). All development agencies, however, agree that programme implementation follows a cyclic learning process consisting the following steps:

Assessment ® Analysis ® Planning ® Intervention ® Monitoring & Evaluation (or Re-assessment).

Problems and potential solutions are identified through assessment. With adequate information, the causes of problems and their causal relationship should be identified. Feasible solutions can then be elaborated through a comprehensive analysis that includes all programme participants. This process is essential to implement the efficient, sustainable, and acceptable actions required to improve the FNS situation of the targeted risk groups.

Merging the three dimensions of FNS (categorical, socio-organizational, and managerial) has the consequence that the instruments and processes have to be selected specifically for assessment, implementation and evaluation considering availability, accessibility, and utilization. Assessment of food availability at the macro level will differ when applied to food availability at meso or micro levels. The same observation applies for instruments and processes selected for programme implementation at the three levels. Despite these differences, all elements are interrelated vertically and horizontally by nature, cause and effect. For example, inappropriate assessment of food availability may lead to the formulation of ineffective interventions that actually reduce access and utilization. FNS is a complex system. Food and nutrition insecurity at different socio-organizational levels is caused by different factors and requires specific solutions. In consequence, an effective FNS programme requires a holistic programme approach. During all stages of the PCM/AAA there is a need for continuous information collection to define targets, to select appropriate interventions, and to monitor and evaluate programme progress, process and impact. Table 2 provides selected examples of assessment instruments sustaining to the different elements of FNS at macro, meso, and micro levels.

At the macro level, some agencies have created data collection systems to assess the food security situation in risk countries and regions.⁸ Perhaps the most simple information source are precipitation records, which can help to predict future food production. Food balance sheets provide information on food availability at national level. The World Food Programme (WFP) developed the Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping (VAM) project to analyze the vulnerability to food insecurity of target populations. A prominent part of VAM is related to food availability. The Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), funded by USAID, provides health data for many countries for national policy design. FAO has developed the Global Information Early Warning System (GIEWS), which collects data related to temporary food insecurity. Under the leadership of WHO, several health surveillance systems have been developed and implemented to monitor the epidemiology of selected diseases. All these initiatives are currently coordinated by FAO as a comprehensive Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping System (FIVIMS).

At the meso or sub-national level, food market surveys provide data on the availability of food. Qualitative surveys, such as food focus group discussions, give other information on the accessibility of food for those in greatest need. District health surveys describe health conditions that may reflect food utilization problems. For quantitative situation analysis, for example, food and nutrition security programmes assisted by GTZ use the standardized BASELINE survey method.⁹

Finally, agricultural production surveys, infra-household food frequency interviews, immunization surveys, and anthropometric surveys in children under five can be used to assess the availability, accessibility, and utilization of food and its stability at micro level.

Using the systematic approach outlined above, Table 2a shows some examples of interventions in the four categorical elements of FNS at different socio-organizational levels. At the macro level, in addition to a sound agricultural price policy that boosts agricultural production,^10,11 family planning programmes may be important to insure food availability on a longer term.¹² Food stamp programmes can increase food accessibility for the most vulnerable groups. National safe motherhood programmes can reduce foetal malnutrition and therefore increase the utilization of food by small children. The formulation of a rigorous savings and loan policy, within the national banking system, can assist small enterprises and help to reduce seasonal food insecurity. Small-scale irrigation projects, school feeding programmes, measles immunization campaigns, or the creation of community planning organizations are instruments to achieve food security at the meso level. Finally, increasing the area of agricultural production through the use of fertilizers, the construction of latrines and food stores, and providing breastfeeding consultants or support groups for young mothers are all examples of FNS interventions at the micro level. The systematic approach shown in Tables 2 and 2a uses the same instruments and processes for assessment and intervention if the four categorical elements of the Malnutrition Framework (Food, Care, Health, Environment) are inserted in the tables above. Therefore, both frameworks - Malnutrition or Food and Nutrition Security -are useful for FNS programme design.

Table 2. Examples of Instruments for FNS at Different Social Levels.

Level	Availability	Accessibility	Utilization	Stability
MACRO	Precipitation Record Food Balance Sheets	Vulnerability Analysis & Mapping	Demographic & Health Survey	Global Information Early Warning System
MESO	Food Market Survey	Food Focus Groups	District Health Surveys	Anthropometric Surveys: Women & Children
MICRO	Agricultural Production Plan	Intra-household Food Frequency Questionnaires	Immunization Charts	Weight Charts for Pregnant Women

Table 2a. Examples of Intervention Tools of FNS Programmes at Different Social Levels.

MACRO	Family Planning Programme	Food Stamp Programme	Safe Motherhood Programme	Savings and Loan Policy
MESO	Small-Scale Irrigation Project	School Feeding Programme	Measles Immunization Campaign	Community Planning Committees
MICRO	Use of Fertilizer	Lactation Consultant Programme	Latrine Construction, Growth Charts	Food Storage

The Situation-Related Dimension: FNS in Different Stages of Insecurity

The situation-related status of a program is the fourth dimension of FNS. As FNS effectiveness increases, the situation will change over time from emergency to more secure conditions. Figure 3 depicts an example of different interventions at the meso level according to the level of food and nutrition security. The left side of the figure shows very high food and nutrition insecurity, i.e., emergency situation. In these circumstances, relief programmes have to provide emergency aid and distribute basic commodities such as food or medicine. These programmes need to react rapidly and flexibly to secure the survival of the people. Once survival of the most vulnerable is ensured, measures can be implemented to build a basis for sustainable development that relies on the capacity of the people. In this phase Integrated Food and Nutrition Security Programs (IFNSP) are required. Self-help measures such as cash-for-work, food-for-work, tools or inputs-for-work can be used to construct basic infrastructure (drinking water supply, latrines, small irrigation channels, reforestation, health and nutrition posts, etc.). At this point, the people may have adequate energy but the quality of their food may still be insufficient. As a result, specific micronutrient interventions may be required.

The right side of the figure reflects a much improved nutritional situation that allows the implementation of the classical instruments of technical cooperation (TC), e.g., the implementation of credit and saving programmes, training and upgrading technical expertise, and institution building. In summary, depending on the stage of FNS at national level, different strategies and measures have to be implemented to increase the FNS situation within a whole country. Figure 3 may create the impression that there exists a continuum of insecurity situations from emergencies to stable conditions, which require a phasing from relief actions to integrated FNS programmes, to conventional technical cooperation. These different stages of insecurity, however, may occur in a country at the same time, requiring all different forms of assistance programmes simultaneously.¹³

In conclusion, FNS has evolved to a very complex area of development strategy. The increasing population and shrinking natural resources will challenge us to respond to secure food and adequate nutrition not only for today, but for tomorrow.

Figure 3. Significance of Implementation Tools at Meso Level in Different Stages of Food and Nutrition Security

References

1. ACC/SCN (1999) Human rights and the right to adequate food: SCN's 26th Symposium Report. ACC/SCN: Geneva.

2. Haddinott J (1999) Operationalizing Household Food Security in Development Projects: An introduction. In: Technical Guide for Food Security. IFPRI: Washington DC.

3. Campbell CC (1991)Food insecurity_ a nutritional outcome or a predictor variable? Journal of Nutrition 91:408-415.

4. Kracht U and Schulz M (1999) Food security and nutrition: the global challenge. Lit-Verlag: Germany.

5. Maxwell S and Frankenberger T (1992) Household food security: Concepts, indicators, measurements. International Fund for Agricultural Development: Rome.

6. UNICEF (1990) Strategy for improving nutrition of children and women in developing countries. UNICEF: NY.

7. Gross R, Schultink W, Kielmann AA (1999) Community nutrition: definition and approaches. In: Encyclopedia of Human Nutrition eds. Sadler MJ, Strain JJ, Caballero B. Academic Press Ltd: London.

8. Slack AT (1999) Food and Nutrition Security Data on the World Wide Web. In: Technical Guide for Food Security IFPRI: Washington DC.

9. Gross R, Kielmann AA, Korte R, Schoeneberger H, Schultink W (1997) Guidelines for nutrition baseline surveys in communities. Southeast Asian Journal of Medical Medicine and Public Health Supplement. SEAMEO-TROPMED and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GZT): Bangkok.

10. Bale MD and Lutz E (1981) Price distortions in agriculture: an international comparison. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 63:8-22.

11. Bautista RM (1990) Price trade policies for agricultural development World Economics 13-89-109.

12. Longhurst R (1985) Agricultural strategies, food and nutrition: issues and opportunities. Nutrition and Health 4:83-94.

13. Preuss H-J A (1999) Plädoyer für eine entwicklungsorientierte Nothilfe. Entwicklung and lädlicher Raum 33:9-11.

Contact Information: Rainer Gross and Hans Schoeneberger are senior nutritionists of the GTZ. Hans Pfeifer is director of the Food and Agriculture Development Center of the German Foundation of Development (ZEL-DSE). Hans-Joachim Preuss is the director of programmes and projects of the NGO Deutsche Welthungerhilfe/German Agro Action (DWHH). Contact: Dr Gross, Dept de Nutricao, Faculdade de Saude Publica, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Av. Dr Arnaldo 715, CEP 01246-904, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Phone: 55 11 30667762; Fax: 5511 30667705; email <urgross@attglobal.net>

Agricultural Biotechnology by Charles J Arntzen Florence Ely Nelson presidential Chair in Plant Biology, Arizona State University President Emeritus, Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Inc.

Crop Domestication, Genetics, and our Food Supply

To understand the challenges of modern crop genetic improvement, it is important to consider the changes that have occurred to plant species in their conversion to a food source. Humans have intervened in plant evolution over the last 10,000 years by selecting and growing plants that they desire in their diet. We have directed processes of change in the crops we grow and are, in turn, affected by the changes that occur. Creation of crops that provide our food supply has been a very dynamic and rapid process of evolution, which parallels the development of human societies.

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) provides a useful example of crop domestication. This species and its relatives evolved in the central Andes Mountains of Peru and Bolivia. More than 100 wild species of tuber-bearing Solanum can still be found in South America. Chemical analysis of these plants show that the tubers contain many toxic chemicals, including glycoalkaloids (which give a bitter taste), saponins, phytohemagglutinin, proteinase inhibitors, sesquiterpene phytoalexins and phenols. These chemicals provide the plant protection for attack by fungi, bacteria and insect pests. They probably also deterred our ancestors who began trying the tubers as a food source at least six-thousand years ago. The way these early peoples overcame the bitter taste and toxicity of the early potato is still reflected in customs of modern Andeans when they collect wild tubers and make a product called tunta. The bitter tasting potatoes are spread on the ground at high altitudes to freeze, and then are walked upon to break them up. Lying in the dry air and going through cycles of freezing and thawing results in a "freeze-dried" product which is then placed in a depression along a running stream. The flowing water leaches out over 90% of the toxic chemicals, leaving the tunta for consumption.

It is likely that our ancestral "farmers" would taste the potatoes they collected, and occasionally find one that was less bitter, and establish a selection for that plant. This early domestication led to preferred "varieties" which could be grown at lower altitudes (which did not have the cold, dry nights needed for tunta preparation). Several thousand varieties of potatoes are grown today in the Andean region, each with various flavors and nutritional value; these represent the trial and error selection of many farming generations. By 1570 early explorers who came to South America had developed a taste for the domesticated potato and brought one or a few varieties to Europe, from whence it was transferred to North America and other parts of the world. Today, potato is the world's fourth most important food crop (after wheat, maize and rice).

Scientists interested in how foraging humans developed agricultural societies have documented similar examples of crop domestication over the last 10,000 years. The adoption of new foods by other cultures has also been studied, with examples of slow acceptance. Tomatoes, which also originated in South America, are one example. In the nineteenth century, Europeans and Americans believed tomatoes to be deadly poisonous. In 1820, New York State forbade tomato consumption and only relented when Colonel Robert Johnston announced that he would eat an entire bag of them outside the courthouse in Salem, New Jersey. Two thousand people turned up to watch him die, while a band played a funeral march. But Johnston ate the lot and announced: This luscious, scarlet apple will form the foundation of a great garden industry.'

There are also examples of recent crop domestication. In World War II, oil-seed rape was grown in Europe to provide lubricating oil for machines. Crop breeders recognized that the plant was a good oil producer, but it contained two chemicals which are toxic to humans: erucic Acid (a C22: a fatty acid) and glucosinolates. (Glucosinolates are the chemicals that give the pungent flavor to horseradish, mustard, and other plant relatives of oil-seed rape.) Using a process called mutation breeding, geneticists identified plants with mutated genes for the synthesis of the toxic chemicals. Using these plants in a breeding program, they developed the widely grown oil-seed rape varieties that are the source of toxin-free edible oils for human consumption in Europe and most of the rest of the world.

Unintended Outcomes of Crop Domestication & Agricultural Responses

The domestication of virtually all of the world's major crops has involved the selection of varieties that have lost their genetic capacity to make toxic chemicals. While this is clearly of advantage for human nutrition, it leaves the plants with a greatly reduced defensive capacity against their natural pathogens and predators (fungi, bacteria and insects). (Toxic chemicals are nature's pesticides within plants; weeds, which often have a bitter taste due to the presence of these chemicals, also often resist attack better than crops.) About 300 years after potatoes were introduced into Europe, the crop was attacked by a late blight disease (caused by an oomycete, Kingdom Stramenopila, called Phytophthora infestans) in the devastating Irish Potato Famine of 1845 and 1846. Phytophthora had probably been a pathogen on other hosts, but mutations in the microbe allowed it to alter its host range to potato plants, and especially the "chemically weakened" domesticated varieties. It is thought that potato late blight probably met success as a pathogen on Solanum tuberosum for the first time in the United States in the early 1800's, but did not immediately cause a major disease outbreak (perhaps due to continued evolution of the pathogen). Because potato tubers can easily be infected, it seems likely that an infected tuber went from the USA to Europe sometime before 1845, with disastrous consequences first in Ireland and later on the continent. Potato late blight is a global problem for potato breeders today, and is countered by the use of fungicides and continued efforts to breed resistant potato varieties.

Agricultural specialists have developed many chemical strategies to try to improve plant defenses against pathogens and predators. In the nineteenth century, various "pesticide" formulations were developed to try to protect potatoes, grapes, and other crops. These have included plant sprays containing copper or arsenic, or nicotine in tobacco juice. (Nicotine, a toxic alkaloid found in tobacco, is similar in chemistry to compounds found in other members of the family Solanaceae, including some of those that have been selected during domestication of family members tomato and potato. It is ironic that we have first caused genetic removal of a "defense" molecule, and then sprayed it back on plants!) In the twentieth century, improvements in chemical synthesis allowed the development of many new classes of synthetic pesticides that are now used internationally, and comprise an agricultural market of over US$20 billion. In spite of this huge investment by farmers to fight crop disease and insects, these agents still are the primary cause of reduction of crop yields! Many of these pesticides have actions that mimic, at least partially, the actions of the defense chemicals that were originally in our food crops, but have been lost during domestication.

Using Transgenic Technology to Restore Food Crop Defenses

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, molecular biology techniques were being developed to isolate fragments of DNA which contained the genetic information of individual genes, and to move these genes from one species to another. By the 1980s a gene from a human virus had been moved to yeast to allow the production of a new, safe vaccine to prevent Hepatitis B infections. A human gene for insulin had been transferred to bacteria to create a new and much safer way to protect diabetics. With a large and growing use of biotechnology making important contributions to human health through new pharmaceuticals, agricultural specialists in the early 1980s directed their attention to how the methodologies could be utilized in crop improvement. They were fortunate in that many of the cell biology tools needed for transfer of genes to plants were already in use in conventional crop breeding.

The growth of plant cells in culture has been an important area of plant research for over fifty years. A major milestone in plant biology was the demonstration that plant cells are totipotent, that is, an isolated plant cell has the complete genetic "blueprint" within its nucleus to allow it to divide and grow to form a new plant. Isolation of one or a few crop cells, and then regeneration of this material into intact plants has been exploited by crop technologists for improvement of many species. "Curing" plant varieties of virus infections to make disease-free breeding stock routinely makes use of plant tissue culture. Treatment of plant cells in culture with mutagenic chemicals has been commonly used to create genetic change which would provide a beneficial trait when the cells were regenerated back into intact plants. It was, therefore, only a small conceptual step to adapt plant cell culture systems to new techniques for introducing DNA. The first successes using gene transfer into plants were reported in 1983. Five years later the first plants derived from this approach were in field trials, and by 1996 the first new crops derived from plant genetic engineering were in the marketplace.

Crop breeders have used gene transfer technology to modify domestic potatoes, and some genetically modified varieties are now commercially available. One of the first targets chosen was insect resistance, since insect losses (especially to potato beetle) are among the most important reasons for farmers' yield losses, and prevention of the problem requires applications of insecticides one or more times during the growing season in commercial potato production areas. In addition, attack of tubers by insect larvae is a significant loss of the stored food in lesser developed countries that do not have the sophisticated storage facilities that are common in the developed world. The strategy that was first used for creating insect resistant potatoes involved the transfer of a gene from a bacteria that is pathogenic against insect larvae (but which is harmless against birds, fish and animals). The bacterium, called Baccillus thuringiensis, produces a protein in nature (the Bt protein). When the gene for this protein was moved to plants, the plants also produce the Bt protein. When an insect larvae eats either the bacterium or plant tissue containing the Bt protein, the digestive process of the insect is interrupted and the insect dies. Many farmers have enthusiastically adopted this approach to reducing crop losses, and have in parallel reduced their use of chemical insecticides.

Crop breeders have also used gene transfer to add traits to several other crops to improve their value to farmers who buy the seed. Maize, soybeans, cotton and some vegetables are currently available from seed companies in the United States and several other companies. The use of biotechnology-derived new cotton varieties has seen particularly rapid adoption in the US and China. The reason for this relates to farmers' difficulties in growing this high value crop; competition from troublesome weeds and insects eating the valuable fibers in developing flowers sometimes cause devastating economic losses. New varieties of cotton with new genetic components have provided relief from some of these problems, and have resulted in dramatic reductions in pesticide use and improved profitability for US farmers (Figure 1).

Next Generation Agricultural Biotechnology Products

The genetically modified crops, which are now commercially available, have largely been created to provide farmers with production advantages, such as reduction in use of costly pesticides, easier weed control, or protection from viral diseases. In coming years, many more diverse products will be possible. For example, public funding and philanthropic sources have helped develop plants that are enriched in essential micronutrients to alleviate vitamin A and iron deficiencies (two major problems in the developing world). Other studies are exploring which constituents of plant foods may have beneficial value as anti-cancer benefits (or other positive health values); it is likely that our domestication of crops has resulted in the reduction of some chemicals that are of direct value to our health, and that new crop breeding tools can restore these valuable constituents of our food supply.

Another area in which plant biotechnology is likely to have a global impact in the next decade is in the area of new vaccine technology. It is estimated by WHO that more than five million children in developing countries die each year from common diseases; the most dominant are diarrhea and respiratory infections. Although preventative medicine has proceeded rapidly in the last decade as biotechnology has been applied to create new vaccines, the new products are comparatively expensive for lesser developed countries. For this reason, a novel strategy has been developed for vaccine production that uses transgenic plants which contain genes derived from bacteria or viruses that cause human disease. These "transgenes" cause the plant to produce a protein that is the "antigenic signature" of the disease. Using mice as an animal model, it has been shown that consumption of transgenic plant samples as food triggered an oral immune response to the "signature protein."

The research on plant-based vaccines has progressed to the point that two human clinical trials have been conducted in the United States. Both were conducted after the U.S. Food and Drug Agency evaluated the protocols and gave their approval. Vaccines to prevent diarrhea were chosen for these early studies since this is the cause of approximately 2.5 million cases of infant mortality on an annual basis, with most deaths occurring in the developing world. Both of the human studies have now been completed in "Phase I trials" that have verified the safety and efficacy of the approach.

To accomplish oral immunization of infants using transgenic food, it has been necessary to select an appropriate crop plant which can be grown in most developing countries, and which is eaten uncooked (to avoid destruction of the vaccine proteins by heat). Efforts are underway to develop both tomatoes and bananas for this purpose. Current research efforts are identifying ways to prepare a dry formulation of vaccine-containing tomato extract using common food processing technology, and to cause the appropriate proteins to accumulate in the banana fruit so that infants could be fed an "edible vaccine" in a banana baby food puree. In both cases, the desired outcome is agriculture and food-based technologies, which are readily available in all developing countries. The use of transgenic plants to produce and deliver oral vaccines also has applicability for novel strategies for disease prevention in animals, thereby improving the safety of our food supply, and stability of animal production.

Figure 1. Driving forces for adaptation of new technology for cotton production (1995-present) · Reduce pesticide use (farmers' cost and environmental safety factors) · Overcome farmers' problems with broadleaf weed control without damage to cotton plants · Increase ease of weed control management
BENEFIT	IMPACT
Increased cotton production	173 million pounds
Reduced pesticide use	2 million pounds
Fewer pesticide treatments	10.7 million acre-treatments
increased farm revenue	US$ 178 million

Source: US Dept of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Summary

Of all the technologies used to increase the global food supply in the last millennium, plant genetics and crop breeding have had the greatest impact. In the last half of the last century, these fields of science have increasingly adopted cellular and molecular techniques for "conventional breeding" of food crops. In addition, over the last two decades, direct manipulations of DMA to create "transgenic crops" have added a new tool to crop improvement. The outcome of the new technologies has been dramatic increases in crop yield; global per capita food production has increased 140% over the last fifty years during a period when global population has doubled to our current level of about six billion persons. However, continued technology advances are needed to ensure an adequate food supply for the anticipated four billion additional inhabitants that will populate this planet in the next fifty years. Preferably, these advances will increase the yield of crops per unit of currently available arable land, thereby preventing the further degradation of ecosystems not now used for farming. Genetic technologies offer our best opportunity to increase yields while protecting the environment. In addition, genetic technologies will allow us to improve foods for improved nutrition and health maintenance.

Bibliography

Johns T (1990) The Origins of Human Diet and Medicine. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Wong SY, Ho KS, Mason HS, and Artnzen CJ, Edible Vaccines. Science & Medicine 5:36-45.

Contact: Dr CJ Arntzen, Florence Ely Nelson presidential Chair in Plant Biology at Arizona State University, USA, and the President Emeritus of the Boyce Thompson institute for Plant Research, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation affiliated with Cornell University. Dr Arntzen's career spans industry, academia, and government service. Me has held positions with the USDA, with The DuPont Company as Research Director, and as Deputy Chancellor for Agriculture at Texas A&M University. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of India. He has served on the editorial board of SCIENCE, as chair of the US National Institute of health's National Biotechnology Advisory Board and on scientific advisory boards of biotechnology companies. Contact Dr Arntzen, Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Inc., Tower Rd, Ithaca, NY 14850 USA; Phone: 607-254-1301; Fax: 607-254-6779; email <cja7@cornell.edu> Website: <http://bti.cornell.edu>

GM Foods: Areas of Concern by Suman Sahai, President, Gene Campaign, New Delhi, India

Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic transformation, is a revolutionary new technology. It allows scientists to change the characteristics of living organisms by transferring genes from one organism, across species barriers, to another, to create a genetically modified organism (GMO). Genetic modification technology can transfer genes between organisms that cannot breed in nature. Thus, genes from humans have been put into mice, from fish into tomatoes and from bacteria into cotton producing transgenic organisms.

GM technology has been most successfully applied to the field of agriculture giving rise to what are called GM crops or transgenic crops. The other area of application is in the production of vaccines and medicines. The field of vaccine production has been interesting because it is now possible to introduce vaccine-producing genes into plants like bananas and potatoes as well as in the milk of animals like sheep and goats. This has significant implications for developing countries where immunization against common diseases like polio, cholera, hepatitis has proven to be difficult and expensive. One of the major problems has been maintaining a reliable cold chain from the origin of vaccine production to the villages where it is required. Having a vaccine present in foods such as bananas or potatoes, which can be grown everywhere, would make the availability of vaccines in interior, inaccessible areas quite easy. This would make a major difference to rural health.

Whereas the application of GM technology to the field of vaccines and medicines has gained public acceptance, its application to agriculture and food production has raised a swarm of controversy. Resistance to GM foods is strongest in Europe, followed by Japan and the US, where large scale demonstrations and protests target the practitioners of GM technology, both in the laboratory and in the field.

The opposition is aimed at two aspects of GM technology. One is the science itself, primarily its safety, the other is the policy governing the use of GM technology. There are misgivings about the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime associated with it and the ironclad control of the multinational corporate sector. It is undeniably true that GM technology has the potential to increase food production and improve the nutritional quality of food; however, it is not being used by its dominant practitioners, the private corporations, to produce either more or better food. It is only the public research institutions, financed by public money, that are trying to apply GM research to crops of interest to poor farmers in developing countries. The Rockefeller Foundation has financed research which will add vitamin A and iron to rice, improving the micronutrient content of this widely-consumed cereal. Research institutes in India are working to include protein genes from Amaranth (Chaulai) into potatoes in order to increase the nutritional quality of this primarily carbohydrate food. Public sector institutions in other developing countries are now beginning to apply GM technology to rice, cassava, yam, and sorghum to produce improved varieties that will increase the production of staples needed by the poor. Despite its promise, however, there are real and credible concerns about GM crops.

Direction of GM Research

The fact is that the life science corporations like Monsanto, Novartis, Aventis and DuPont control research on GM crops primarily because of the enormous resources they command. The focus of their research is on commercial agriculture and the goal is to maximize corporate profits. Corporate research is not targeted towards the needs of small farmers. GM crops are not targeted towards helping to alleviate hunger and poverty. GM crops are also a problem area, if one looks at it from the point of view of sustainable agriculture. The increase in the number of GM varieties might strike a further blow to genetic diversity in the field and exacerbate genetic erosion. Loss of genetic diversity in food and cash crops has been well documented following the introduction of high-yielding varieties at the time of the green revolution. GM crops might strengthen this trend.

If we look into the direction of corporate funded GM research, we find that the focus of the research is on commerce, not on food. The bulk of the research in the private sector is aimed at herbicide-tolerant varieties of soybean; Bt com (com with a bacterial gene for disease resistance;) Bt cotton (a cotton variety carrying the same bacterial gene for resistance against the bollworm pest) and the flavour-savour tomato (a product designed for increased shelf-life). If there is research on com, then the research is targeted at yellow maize, which is used for animal feed and for making sugar-syrup. This research is not targeted at the white maize, which is a staple food in Africa and which is very susceptible to disease.

Apart from fears about its safety, the public rejection of GM crops is strongly influenced by the perception that GM crops are neither targeted at farmers nor at hunger but only at maximizing corporate profits. This technology is today fully controlled by six multinational corporations through instruments of protection like Intellectual Property Rights and trade secrets. In such a situation, it is only logical that society will judge this technology to see whether it can address social goals, whether it can address the needs of developing countries where widespread hunger persists, and whether it can help to increase productivity for small farmers. Society, before accepting this technology, will determine whether these crops will have any role to play in increasing food and nutritional security for the vulnerable populations of the world.

The opponents of GM technology legitimately ask: Why doesn't GM research target food crops? Why are there no research investments in legumes and pulses, in sorghum, millet and yams? In many developing countries a legume called Lathyrus sativus (known as khesari dal in India) is eaten since it grows on marginal lands and provides much needed protein. Lathyrus sativus contains a toxin gene and prolonged consumption leads to a wasting of the limbs, a condition called Lathyrism. Why isn't GM research targeting crops like Lathyrus? Also, there is no significant work being done by the corporate sector on drought resistance and salinity tolerance.

Making GM Researchers More Responsible

If the direction of privately funded research is not satisfactory, in what way should it be improved?

1. Research funds and new technologies must address hunger and the crop needs of small farmers.

2. Private and public sector partnerships should be forged. These structures must target food crops for developing countries because we have seen that the private sector on its own has not paid any attention to crops relevant to the poor.

3. Private corporations should be called to share GM technology with responsible scientists for use in developing countries. It is an atrocious situation that six corporations control a technology with the potential for alleviating hunger and yet this technology is not being applied towards these goals.

4. New collaborations should be established between diverse players like public research institutions, international institutions, NGOs and industry to spread the benefits of new research.

Safety and Sustainability of Food Production

With respect to GM foods, there are widespread concerns that are being raised, primarily in two areas, the first concerning human health, the other concerning the environment. A third area of concern in this context, of special relevance to developing countries, is its impact on sustainable food production and self reliance of farmers. Our experience of the Green Revolution showed that with the introduction of new technology, like high-yielding varieties, small farmers tended to get marginalized. GM crops will also tend to marginalize small farmers. In addition, GM technology will establish the dominance of corporations, more so if the kind of IPR regimes and seed patent demands are acceded to. This will result in seed production and ultimately food production being controlled by corporations, posing a great threat to self reliance in developing countries and their ability to feed themselves. Finally, the introduction of GM crops will strike at sustainable food production by increasing genetic erosion in the field, unless we take very determined steps to counter this effect.

Human Health Concerns

Antibiotic markers. There is great concern about the potential damage to human health that could be caused by the resistance induced by antibiotic markers that are used in breeding GM crops. Although there is little evidence so far that ingestion of antibiotic markers is harmful, it must be said that consumption of GM foods is a very new phenomenon and it is theoretically possible that the effects, if there are any, have not yet appeared. No one is testing for negative effects, nor are there any testing procedures available for examing the long term effects of eating GM foods containing antibiotic marker genes. In the public interest, it would be wise to act according to the Precautionary Principle in this case, and ban the use of antibiotic markers. These markers are not essential to the production of GM crops and several alternatives exist. In Europe, clearance to GM crops is not given if they contain antibiotic m