Biofortification no cure for hunger - Devinder Sharma.

[Guest guest]

Flogging a dead horse

 

 

 

Biofortification is no cure for hunger.

 

Devinder Sharma

 

says

boosting nutrients in various crops isn't going to make

them any more affordable for the poor.

 

(hunger55(at)gmail.com)

 

 

 

 

 

November 2003 - Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' donation of US $25 million for

biofortification - breeding crops with higher levels of micronutrients -

is an effort to provide a life-saving shot to the dying family of

public-sector international agricultural research institutes. The

Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR),

responsible for ushering in the green revolution technology, is now

seriously grappling for survival.

Faced with huge staff layoffs, drastic cuts in research programmes,

declining research output, and vanishing financial commitments, the CGIAR

is contemplating a series of mergers to stay afloat. Gasping for breath,

the CGIAR is even considering the merger of two of its premier institutes

- the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) at Los Banos, in the

Philippines, and the International Crop Research Centre for Wheat and

Maize (CIMMYT), in Mexico City.

Such has been the desperation that the CGIAR deviated from its usual

appearance of standing for the public good in 2002, when it decided to

take on board Syngenta Foundation. This major shift in its known public

image prompted the CG's committee of non-government organisations to

freeze its relationship with the organisation. The NGOs believe that the

CG has abdicated its responsibility of ensuring food security for the

world's poor by bringing in technologies that lead to economically viable

and sustainable farming systems. Instead the CGIAR has become a service

centre for corporate interests.

Bill Gates' donation therefore comes as a blessing in disguise for the

failing CGIAR. Ever since the release of the dwarf wheat and rice crop

varieties some 25-30 years ago, the international agricultural research

centres have only been engaged in maintenance research - trying to protect

what has already been evolved and released. With no clear-cut direction

and vision, donors have drifted away. The CGIAR therefore attempted a

number of options - suggesting special thematic research programmes under

the 'challenge programmes' - and then remained undecided on the approach

to follow.

Biofortification was one of the misplaced research priorities that CGIAR

proposed earlier but was unable to undertake in the face of public outcry.

Nor did it make any research sense - research programmes are no longer

based on common sense - to breed for crops that supplement micronutrients.

The much-touted 'golden rice', which contains a miniscule addition of

beta-carotene in rice, has now been widely accepted to be a misadventure.

Scientists, including Dr M.S.Swaminathan, father of India's green

revolution, and Dr Robert Cantrell, director general of the IRRI, have

already gone on record saying that golden rice cannot address the problem

of Vitamin A deficiency.

 

 

 

 

 

If CGIAR had aimed at eradicating hunger in the first place, there would be no 'hidden hunger'.

 

 

•

Also see:

 

ICAR in a coma

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In any case, fortified crops cannot eradicate nutrient deficiency. Whether

the newly evolved genetically-modified crops contains supplements of

Vitamin A, iron or zinc, these foods will not be helpful to those who need

it desperately - the malnourished. The reason is simple. The human body

requires adequate amount of fats to absorb these nutrients, which is

conspicuously absent in malnourished populations. The hungry therefore

gain nothing by eating these food supplements - and would be able to

afford less food because of the high price as a result of more strict

intellectual property control. The biofortification programme in reality

therefore is aimed at restoring the credibility of the discredited

biotechnology industry, which is receiving a severe drubbing in Europe and

elsewhere in Asia.

Bill Gates was probably not properly advised, and for obvious reasons.

Harvest Plus, the CGIAR public relations outfit, is in dire need of

financial resources and therefore used the emotional card of hunger and

malnutrition to seek funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Not realising that 'hidden hunger', as nutrient deficiency is generally

referred to, cannot be removed by providing the poor and hungry with an

'informed choice' of novel and functional foods. What the poor need is

food - and which is abundantly available - and that too rich in nutrients.

In India, for instance, which is home to one-third of the world's hungry

and malnourished, more than 30 million tonnes of wheat and rice (which was

a record 65 million tonnes a year ago) are rotting in the open. The

surplus food contains an average of nine percent proteins - four to nine

times more than any fortified GM crop that scientists have developed so

far.

A much more humanitarian purpose would have been served if Gates had

instead made grants to institutes and groups that would have helped reach

the available food to the poor, to ensure that the hungry are adequately

fed. The reality is that the poor and hungry do not have the means to buy

the food that is available, much of it rotting in front of their dry eyes.

If the hungry cannot afford to buy their normal dietary requirement of

rice (or for that matter any other staple food) for a day, how CGIAR

proposes to make available 'golden rice' to them, is something that Bill

Gates probably forgot to ask. What is not being realised by the global

scientific and development community (including CGIAR) is that if they had

aimed at eradicating hunger in the first place, there would be no 'hidden

hunger'.

Biotechnology, the way it is being promoted by corporate interests, has

the potential to further the great divide between haves and have-nots. The

twin engines of economic growth - technological revolution and

globalisation - will only widen the existing gap between the well-fed and

the hungry masses. Biotechnology will, in reality, push more people into a

hunger trap. With public attention and resources being diverted from

ground realities, hunger will only grow in the years to come.

CGIAR's blind support of the corporate agenda, therefore, is a pointer to

the growing irrelevance of the international agricultural research

institutes. Such is the poverty of ideas to meet the growing food needs of

the world that the CGIAR has been gradually made to die a premature death,

mostly its own undoing. It is high time the CGIAR board, which is firmly

in the grip of the World Bank and the Japanese government, follows what is

enshrined in its original mandate. The CGIAR should hand over its 16

research centres to the respective countries where these are located. This

is what the forefathers of the research system had said at the time of

creating the CGIAR, and they were so right.

 

Nothing can revitalise this dying horse. Not even Bill Gates with his

millions, and not unless the CGIAR is made to stand up for the poor and

marginalized farming communities.

��

 

Devinder Sharma

 

 

November 2003

 

Devinder Sharma

is a food and trade policy analyst. He also chairs the New Delhi-based

Forum for Biotechnology & Food Security. Among his recent works

include two books GATT to WTO: Seeds of Despair and In the Famine Trap.

 

"Itis clear....that the government's immunization policies are driven by politics and not by science. I can give numerous examples where employees of the US Public Health Service....appear to be furthering their careers by acting as propaganda officers to support political agendas. In one case....employees of a foreign government, who were funded and working closely with the US Public Health Service, submitted false data to a major medical journal. The true data indicated the vaccine was dangerous; however, the false data" indicated no risk. - October 1999, Dr. Bart Classen, founder and CEO of Classen Immunotherapies as told to Congress.

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