World Food Prices

rose to call attention to the effects of rises in world food prices; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I start by declaring an interest and emphasising an absence of a special interest. First, I am chair of the charity Sense About Science, which is dedicated to promoting an evidence-based approach to the public discussion of scientific issues. Secondly, in the light of some of the remarks I shall make later, I declare a lack of any interest, financial or otherwise, direct or indirect, personally or through Sense About Science, in any agribusiness. It is hard to exaggerate the harmful impact of the rise in the prices of certain basic crops on many parts of the developing world. I shall focus on its effects in Africa because that is where they will be most devastating. Last year, wheat prices rose by 77 per cent and rice by 16 per cent, and since January this year rice prices have more than trebled. The effect on those who live on $2 a day is nothing less than catastrophic. But the rise in prices is a symptom of a wider problem: the demand for food and the supply are getting out of balance. It is often said that there is no shortage of food in the world and that we do not need more efficient agriculture because it is only a problem of distribution. In fact, demand is rising rapidly, and over the next 40 to 50 years we shall need to double or treble the world's food production. Some 850 million people are now badly undernourished. By the middle of this century there will be about 3 billion more mouths to feed. We are also beginning to see the effect of a welcome rise in living standards in India and China. Consumption of meat in China rose nearly fourfold between 1980 and 2003 and it is still rising. Of course this has meant a huge rise in the demand for grain to feed the extra livestock. At the same time supply has been affected by several factors: the dash for biofuels, the rising cost of energy, and an increasing shortage of good farming land, particularly in Africa, which suffers from depletion of soil nutrients, soil erosion and desertification. Global warming is likely to make the shortage of land and the problems of farmers in Africa even worse. Unlike the rest of the world, food production per head in Africa has been declining in the past 20 years or more, and so has consumption. So the prospects are dire. What can be done? The problem is not shortage of aid. Per head of population, Africa receives about three times as much aid as any other developing region. About 13 per cent of the entire GDP of the average sub-Saharan country consists of foreign aid. Obviously, at times of famine and emergency, there is need for immediate food aid, but in two vital areas help is either severely reduced or more or less non-existent. One area is family planning. I have raised the population issue in this House before. Just to illustrate the point: the drastic reduction in aid for family planning has meant that in Uganda, for instance, the population is expected to rise from 25 million to 120 million by the middle of this century. But that is not my subject today. The second area, surprisingly and depressingly, is the virtual collapse in aid for the development of agriculture, particularly the vital help that science can bring to enable farmers to grow their own crops. In 1980, 25 per cent of America’s official development aid was for the development of agriculture. By 2003, it was 1 per cent. The record of European countries is not much better. The percentage of our bilateral aid that goes to agriculture has dropped from 11.4 per cent to 4.1 per cent. Germany’s is now 2.9 per cent; France’s is 2.2 per cent. As Mr Wolfowitz confessed when he was head of the World Bank, "““my institution has largely gotten out of the business of agriculture””." Support for the official organisation on which most R&D in agriculture in Africa now depends, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), has also declined, leaving it severely short of funds. The recent forum in Rome may lead to some renewal of aid for developing countries, but most commentators found the results of the forum deeply disappointing. Why on earth has this happened? Helping people to grow their own food is far more important than making them dependent on food aid. As Dean Swift famously said, "““whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before; would deserve better of mankind, and do better service for his country, than the whole race of politicians put together””." I regret to say that one main cause of this decline is the influence exercised by many leading NGOS. The developed world has benefited hugely from modern agriculture. Cheaper and healthier food has been one reason why we live far healthier and much longer lives than our ancestors. Of course, modern industrial farming causes problems, the latest of which is perhaps obesity, but these are far outweighed by benefits that we take for granted. Unfortunately, NGOs such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and advocates of organic farming have persuaded most African Governments that they must avoid the technologies from which we have benefited. There are exceptions: Oxfam International has denounced the decline in aid for agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa, and FARM-Africa is an excellent NGO with no prejudice against science and technology. However, most NGOs have sought to keep, and have succeeded in keeping, science out of African agriculture. The chief scientist of Greenpeace, for example, has argued that the de facto organic status of African smallholders—who cannot, of course, afford the use of fertilisers—gives them a wonderful opportunity to avoid the switch to chemicals, even though he acknowledges that this would increase production. He argues that it would lead to degradation of the soil in the longer term. In fact, there is no excess of nitrogen in the soil in Africa; it is being removed at an annual rate of 22-26 kilograms per hectare. Excessive fertiliser may be a problem for wealthy countries, but Africa desperately needs more. Yet NGOs urge Africa to stay organic. I do not question the idealism of the organic movement. My main objection is that organic farming means less efficient use of land—the last thing the world needs today. Organic food costs more. Why? Not because organic farmers try to rook the public by charging higher prices, but because its yields are lower than those of conventional farming. As the distinguished Indian biotechnologist C.S. Prakash has said: "““Organic farming is sustainable. It sustains poverty and malnutrition””." What must be done? The developed world and international institutions must give aid for agriculture top priority. If we do not, poverty, hunger and disease in Africa will get worse. Aid should include support for every technology that can increase production, which must include support for genetic engineering. Everyone concerned with aid for Africa should read a wonderful book by Robert Paarlberg, Starved for science: How biotechnology is being kept out of Africa, one of the most important books I have read for years. No one argues that biotechnology is the only answer. Improvements in traditional plant and animal breeding can make a huge difference; so can marker-assisted selection. There will be other new technology, but genetic engineering has an important role to play as an adjunct to conventional breeding and marker-assisted selection. It should be a major part of the aid programmes of DfID and the United States. Many myths are part of the anti-GM propaganda. There is not a shred of evidence—after a wealth of experience of over 10 years, with crops now grown on over 112 million hectares in more than 28 countries—that GM crops pose any greater threat to human health than conventionally grown crops. This has been confirmed by every national academy of sciences, the WHO, the FAO and the European Commission. Yet the NGOs continue to warn African Governments that GMOs are toxic. There is no evidence that GM crops are more damaging to the environment; in fact, they decrease the need for fertiliser and chemicals. Pest-resistant transgenic crops need less spraying with pesticides, and herbicide-tolerant crops on balance need less spraying with herbicides. Herbicide-tolerant crops can also remove the need to plough. Ploughing disturbs wildlife in the earth, causes soil run-off, uses energy and releases harmful greenhouse gases. Most GM crops increase yields and require less land. In any number of ways they are good for the environment. It is claimed that they benefit only multinationals, not small-scale farmers. On the contrary, many GM crops are well suited to the needs of small-scale farmers. They provide a technology packaged in a seed. They do not need large-scale cultivation, more fertiliser and more irrigation, unlike the green revolution, which saved hundreds of millions of lives. There are more than 10 million small-scale cotton farmers, mainly in China and India, but also in parts of South Africa, which is the one part of Africa where GM crops have been allowed. They have greatly increased their income and improved their health because cultivating pest-resistant GM cotton means that they have to buy and use fewer pesticides and spray less often. In any case, multinational companies are not found in sub-Saharan Africa. A poll by the Pew foundation some years ago shows that people there wish they were, because they make agriculture more productive and raise living standards. It is perfectly true that promoting GM crops suitable for the developing world is not profitable for big companies. It is a tragedy that public investment in agriculture generally, and in biotechnology in particular, has declined in Europe and elsewhere. The best hope for GM crops in Africa now probably lies with the Gates Foundation. Another encouraging development is that about half of total world R&D in transgenic crops is now done in China, which is developing crops for the third world. That is not done by multinationals but in China. The only staple GM crop now grown in Africa is transgenic white maize, in South Africa. However, the Gates Foundation is investing millions of pounds in several transgenic staple crops such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, millet, sorghum, rice and maize. If introduced, they could boost the low productivity of most African farmers. The problem is that commercial trials of all these crops are held up by political opposition from Governments who are advised by NGOs. NGOs’ influence in Africa is huge. Governments depend on them, partly, I readily acknowledge, because of the good work they do in providing education and healthcare. One of the most important contributions of transgenic technology is likely to be in drought resistance. Drought-resistant GM crops are now being developed in many countries, including the United States, China, Egypt, Australia and others. Given the likely spread of desertification in Africa, no region stands to benefit more from this application of GM technology. I hope that I have demonstrated the validity of my two main propositions: first, that in dealing with the food crisis in Africa, we must restore aid for agriculture to the top of the aid agenda; and, secondly, that this must include the best agricultural science, not consisting solely of, but certainly including, biotechnology. I hope that, in the light of the overwhelming evidence now available, NGOs will abandon their dogmatic opposition to GMOs. I hope that I can then renew my support for Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth as campaigners for a better environment whom I strongly backed in their early days. I will back them provided they campaign in support of science and with due respect for the best available evidence. I beg to move for Papers.