The November 2011 G20 meeting in Cannes last week, perhaps understandably, focused on addressing the eurozone crisis. However, behind the financial headlines lies a bigger crisis of global hunger and malnutrition.

The Horn of Africa famine has drawn heightened attention to the issues of food security and hunger, with many tens of thousands of people suffering from losses of food supplies and an inability to purchase food in parts of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia.

However, this situation represents only the tip of the iceberg of a wider food crisis that affects almost a billion people.

Hunger levels have remained stubbornly high and have indeed increased during (PDF) and just after the 2008 food price spike. The Global Hunger Index (GHI) notes that the world produces enough calories per person to feed the world, but that hunger levels remain at ‘serious’ levels globally. Twenty-six countries in the world have hunger levels that are described as ‘serious’ or ‘alarming’.

The French government promised to place food security and agriculture at the forefront of its agenda when it took the mantle as President of the G20 in 2011.

So what happened, and what should we expect from the G20 in 2012?

Steps forward on global food security

French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s announcement that he will be taking forward a proposal on a financial transaction tax caused a flurry of excitement from some NGOs. There were incremental moves from G20 governments to close down secrecy of tax havens, as well as the need to invest in national social protection floors – important for improving the access to food for vulnerable people.

Regarding agriculture and food security, the French Presidency of the G20 acknowledged the need to regulate and improve transparency in commodity markets, through ex-ante position limits, a tool which ‘can cap the amount of the market that can be held by an individual trader’ and the creation of an Agriculture Market Information System, also known as AMIS.  These measures, if fully implemented, represent a step forward in attempts to intervene in opaque agricultural markets that many, such as Julian Oram on this blog, believe have amplified or directly contributed to food price volatility.

The outcome text and communiqué also refer towards the need to ‘foster investment in smallholder farmers’ as well as to promote farmers’ access to risk management tools to manage price risks. The members also pushed forward with a plan developed by the World Food Programme to initiate a system of emergency food (PDF) reserves in West Africa.

The world’s poorest people

However, with the political crisis in Greece overshadowing much of the agenda, food security was left as a footnote. The agenda was overambitious, and as a result led to an incoherent set of outcome documents that offered much in rhetoric but delivered little in commitments, particularly on agriculture and food security.

While the communiqué and declaration name-check the importance of investment in agricultural productivity, the text lacks details on the targeting of that support, for example to resource poor smallholder farmers and other marginal livelihood groups. The text also mentions the need to foster investment in agriculture, but there is no specific mention of the members investing in the resource poor farmers themselves.

Similarly, the members fail to mention the G8 L’Aquila Food Security Initiative (PDF) from 2009, where donors promised to invest in the country-owned plans agriculture and food security plans of vulnerable countries. Eighteen of the G20 (PDF) have signed up to this pledge, and it remains off-track, with only 22 percent disbursed so far (PDF), and 26 percent ‘on track’ to be disbursed.

Support for resource-poor smallholder farmers

A number of non-governmental organisations, such as Concern Worldwide, who have many years of experience in working on food security at the field level, believe that investment in smallholder farmers remains an effective method to reduce poverty and food security in rural areas.

Policy think-tank IFPRI suggest that support to agriculture, as well as complementary investments in education, health and social services is vital to meeting Millennium Development Goal target 1 on hunger through increasing the availability of food and improved dietary knowledge. Due to the predominately-rural nature of poverty, analysts suggest that growth in agriculture can be more than twice as effective (PDF) at reducing poverty as growth in other sectors, and that growth can be particularly pro-poor when it is based on small farms.

Investment in smallholder farmers can result in linkages with the non-farm economy, create job opportunities, and boost the local businesses. Agricultural economists in the Montpellier Panel have called this process a ‘virtuous circle’ where support to poor farmers leads to spillover effects in other parts of the economy.

Looking to 2012

G20 members should keep their promises to the world’s poorest people in 2012. Principally, it is imperative that the Mexican Presidency keeps food security on the agenda – in particular support for resource poor smallholder farmers. There are three concrete ways that G20 members can help to achieve this aim.

Firstly, the G20 governments should rigorously monitor the commitments of members that have committed to the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative from 2009. It remains critical that donor countries keep their commitments to support vulnerable countries to invest in smallholder agriculture.

Secondly, investments should be monitored against measurements that move beyond productivity and address poverty reduction and malnutrition indicators. This process would ensure that support is targeted at those people most in need, and can improve the effectiveness of aid delivery.

Lastly, despite an era of austerity, there remains a desperate need for further public sector investment in smallholder agriculture. G20 governments can help with this aim by supporting the country-owned agriculture and food security plans of countries vulnerable to food insecurity – small-scale producers in vulnerable countries expect nothing less.

About Robin Willoughby

Robin Willoughby is Policy Officer at Concern Worldwide (UK). Concern Worldwide is an international humanitarian organisation dedicated to reducing suffering and working towards the elimination of extreme poverty. In an effort to support these aims, Concern Worldwide (UK) has recently launched a campaign action, calling on members of the public to pressure the UK Government and other donors to keep their hunger promises.

I research the health and welfare of chickens reared for meat, but last year I spent six weeks working with BBC Countryfile as part of the British Science Association’s Media Fellowship scheme for research scientists. At the BBC I had the chance to act as researcher and scientific adviser for a feature looking at the rise of huge indoor ‘mega’ dairies and pig farms in the United States.

The mega farm debate is highly polarised. I heard equally passionate arguments that mega farms pollute the environment and destroy rural communities, and from others who believe that they’re the only viable way to keep meat and dairy products affordable back here in Britain.

Estimates vary, but population growth predicts that we will need around a 40% increase in global food production by 2030. UK Government food policy supports ‘sustainable intensification’, which means increasing farm production per hectare without compromising the environment or the wellbeing of farmed animals.

Intensifying livestock farming has already shown a phenomenal capacity to raise yields. In 1990 the average UK dairy cow produced 5151 litres of milk. In 2010-11 it was 7,406 litres – nearly half as much again.

We’re used to the idea of chicken farms housing tens of thousands of birds for eggs or meat, but British people seem less comfortable with large scale dairies and pig farms. Proposals for an 8000 cow dairy at Nocton in Lincolnshire met with considerable opposition before they were (scaled back and finally) withdrawn in February 2011. Midland Pig Producers’ plans for a 2500 sow pig farm in Derbyshire are the target of the Soil Association’s ‘Not in my Banger’ campaign, launched in January  2011.

For and against

Those in favour of scaling up argue that it makes everything cheaper per animal and so more efficient. Moreover, if producers can then afford to invest in the latest technology or equipment, or employ specialist staff, higher standards of animal care and disease prevention should follow. There can be environmental trade-offs too: housing large numbers of pigs or cattle indoors makes it easier to collect slurry for use as fertiliser or to install an anaerobic digester and turn it into energy.

Some opponents worry about a decline in small farms: rising UK milk yields over the past decade were accompanied by expanding herd sizes and a drop in both the total number of dairy farms and of cows. Others fear that housing many animals so densely creates a disease risk or restricts their normal behaviour to an unacceptable degree. Big farms sometimes claim to have a smaller carbon footprint but it’s not clear how such claims factor in things the public pay for. These could include the environmental costs of pollution incidents, or government-funded infrastructure such as programmes in America that supplied arid areas with water and allowed dairy farming to expand into the west coast.

Ultimately, it’s not easy to add up the costs and benefits. Every farm is different and animal welfare, economics and environmental costs and benefits can’t even be measured in the same currency.

Reality check

Recent proposals like Nocton and Foston have attracted attention because of their scale, but many of the considerations are not unique to mega farms. It is true that very high yielding dairy cows have been bred to put so much of their energy into milk production that their health, fertility and even lifespan have been affected. But these specialist breeds are used in many small farms too – intensive farms are not necessarily large, and vice versa.

And are mega farms really so different from what we already have? In 2008, over two-thirds of fattening pigs raised for meat in the UK were produced on units housing 1000 animals or more. When does medium become big? When does big become too big?

People often struggle to define exactly what it is about very large scale farms that makes them uneasy. Many have an instinctive resistance to animals being kept indoors. The majority seem unaware that British weather means that almost all of our dairy cows are housed indoors for around six months of the year anyway.

Perhaps the truth is that people’s fears about the future of farming are really a reflection that their lives are quite distanced from its present. And when we do get closer to reality, the choices get even tougher.

However much we value the idea of cows in wide open fields or pigs rooting around in the mud, beliefs and behaviour at the supermarket don’t always tally. If the price goes too high, most shoppers will go for the cheaper option. That can sometimes mean a backward step to imports from countries with less stringent standards.

 The conversations I had during my research for Countryfile made me realise that there is something all sides agree on: whatever its size or production system, each farm is only as good as its staff. Unless there is a massive change in consumers’ habits, there is an argument that animals, the environment and customers’ wallets might all benefit if we focus less on the type of farm and more on demanding – and supporting – rigorous standards from all UK farmers.

About Becky Hothersall

Dr Becky Hothersall is a post-doctoral researcher in the Animal Welfare and Behaviour Group at the University of Bristol’s School of Veterinary Sciences. Her research uses behavioural and cognitive approaches to try to understand subjective experiences like pain and hunger in other species. Becky is particularly interested in how animal welfare can be integrated into the wider sustainability agenda within farming.

On 1 April 2011 Scotland became home to a brand new scientific research centre. The James Hutton Institute aims to be one of the world’s leading research institutes on land, crops, water and the environment and is the biggest, multi-disciplinary centre of its type in the UK.

Fittingly, its name has been taken from one of the leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, James Hutton (1726-97). Hutton ranks as one of Scotland’s greatest scientists: a polymath, observer and interpreter of nature. He is regarded as the founder of modern geology and was also an enthusiastic experimental farmer. 

I am sure that the creation of The James Hutton Institute will have helped complete his return to prominence as a pioneering scientist and thinker – he recently featured in BBC’s Men of Rock documentary series.

But there is another reason why James Hutton as a figurehead is singularly appropriate. He was one of the first scientists to understand the concept of a living planet: ecosystems of incredible diversity which are deeply interconnected through sharing common resources. It probably would not surprise Hutton that the huge scientific and industrial advances of his life would have consequences for the well-being of all that makes up the living planet.

This was the subject of a UK Government report that outlined some worrying trends that are likely to impact on all of us. The Foresight report on Global Food and Farming Futures took two years to produce and involved leading scientists from 35 countries including Scotland. The alarming conclusion was that we have about 20 years to deliver something of the order of 40% more food, 30% more fresh water and 50% more energy to sustain a human population of something like 8.3 billion people without destroying the environment in the process.

We two are one

To tackle these problems, The James Hutton Institute has been created by two established scientific organisations active for many decades in the areas of food supply, land use, water and ecosystems: the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen and the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) in Invergowrie, Dundee. 

Researchers at the Macaulay have a long track record in land management particularly with respect to the Scottish hills and uplands. They are responsible for the soil and peat surveys of Scotland and the Land Capability for Agriculture classification is the official agricultural classification system widely used in Scotland. They have also been active in advising the Scottish Government on major land use issues including reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy, and have provided major contributions to the recent Pack Inquiry into future support for agriculture in Scotland and the development of the draft Land Use Strategy for Scotland.

Products developed at SCRI are familiar names on supermarket shelves. They include popular raspberry varieties such as Glen Ample and Glen Lyon; potato varieties including Lady Balfour, Anya, Vales Sovereign, Vales Emerald and Mayan Gold. SCRI’s brassicas (swedes, turnips, kale etc.) dominate the UK market, and 50% of the world’s blackcurrant crop was developed at the Invergowrie site. Food security research is underway to help crops survive a changing climate both here and abroad; scientists from both institutes have been active in projects aimed at helping communities and farmers around the world.

Greater than the sum of the parts

So why bring the two together? I could answer by saying why keep them apart. The two institutes can combine various scientific and management interests in arable and livestock agriculture, lowlands and uplands, farming and forestry, wildlife and environment, people and policy.

A large part of the work of the two centres is funded by the Scottish Government as part of its rural and environmental research strategy, and scientists from both organisations were already collaborating on some of the government-supported work programmes. The new James Hutton Institute will enable us to work together and serve our research customers in Scotland, the UK and Europe more effectively. 

For example, perhaps one of the most exciting challenges for the new institute is likely to be working with partner organisations to find ways of empowering rural communities, not just in Scotland, but around the world. The James Hutton Institute has active links and partnerships with more than 60 countries and has already been leading projects in Africa to help rural communities improve crop yields and ensure healthy seed stocks. We have also been active with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to produce a series of briefing papers: for example to raise the profile of the ecosystems approach in tackling not just climate change mitigation and adaptation, but also poverty alleviation, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity loss and many other environmental issues.

It certainly is not just about farming, forestry and livestock: we are equally keen to use our science to help provide a vibrant countryside that everyone can enjoy for living and recreational space. Science at The James Hutton Institute will also be used to study energy use and renewables, landscape planning and human health. We have plenty of evidence that our science will have a measurable and very positive economic impact in Scotland and further afield.

Let’s go back to that great son of Scotland, James Hutton. He was a man ahead of his time, as evidenced by his pre-Darwinian thoughts on natural selection processes. He looked at his surroundings, and the interactions of man and the earth, in a new way. He kept asking questions and when nobody had any answers, he used his powers of observation and analysis to suggest his own answers. 

Our new, Scottish-based but global-thinking institute will be proud to bear his name. We will also aspire to emulate his inquiring mind, his enthusiasm and his willingness to share knowledge and seek evidence: looking out and looking forward.

About Iain Gordon

Iain, who holds both British and Australian nationality, returned to Scotland to take up the post of Chief Executive of The James Hutton Institute after eight years working with CSIRO – the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation – in Canberra. Professor Gordon is native to Aberdeenshire and graduated with a Zoology honours degree from the University of Aberdeen; he was awarded his PhD by the University of Cambridge. He worked at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen, leading the Ecology Group, before moving to Australia in 2003.

Developing agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa involves tackling political problems as well as the scientific ones, says Sara Delaney.

Bold orange signs decorated the brightly lit rooms, each proclaiming ‘New Directions for Smallholder Agriculture’ and offering a taste of keywords to come: ‘finance, migration, accessing markets, youth…’, serving as an inspiring backdrop for the two day conference held at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), in Rome, on January 24-25.

On the first morning two IFAD colleagues, Steven Schonberger and Geoffrey Livingston, and I presented a ‘regional’ paper we had written (PDF) for the conference on the sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) perspective.

In the paper, we try to present the smallholder situation in SSA including the challenges and opportunities, how these are changing, and how it compares to other developing regions. Following this, we build from IFAD’s recently released Rural Poverty Report 2011, which has a central theme the risks which smallholders confront – ranging from social to technological to market related. These risks are the fundamental barrier preventing many smallholders transitioning from subsistence agriculture to a commercial agriculture where they produce a surplus, sell it, and earn an income.

Reducing risk: right place, right time

But how to reduce these risks? How to make the ‘risk-to-return ratio’ low enough that more smallholders in SSA can turn farming into a sustainable business which generates profits and fuels the rural economy?

While there are many aspects to this challenge, we decided to look at two, which we felt particularly strongly about from our experience in the region: place and time.

The location of a farm in relation to a market, not only to sell products, but also to access important inputs, is crucial. And it’s not only the physical distance, but the time and cost of getting there which affect risks and returns.

Not only are small farmers in SSA the most physically isolated (34% live more than five hours (PDF) from a market town of 5,000 or more), but transport costs are also the highest and most unpredictable in the world both within countries and particularly across borders – largely due to the domination of corrupt trucking cartels.

And, as if this doesn’t make it hard enough for farmers to perform critical operations at the right time, we found that many agricultural development programs do not deliver promised services at the time they are needed on the agricultural calendar. For example, in the majority of fertiliser subsidy programs, a significant portion of fertilizer or subsidy coupons are delivered after the optimal time for use in the field (PDF). Rather big ‘elephants in the room’ as co-author Geoffrey Livingston referred to them during our presentation.

Pushing elephants out the door

What to do about these elephants? In our paper we make recommendations, mainly aimed at funding institutions like IFAD. But the feedback from the floor was strong – this is something that will require the full range of partners to tackle. Not only do international donor institutions have a role to play, but so do national governments, local NGOs, the private sector and farmer organisations.

As the conference went on other elephants kept barging in: corruption in other parts of the agricultural chain (extension services, project management staff, input delivery, local trade negotiations), international trade inequalities, the struggling education system as well as the resulting lack of youth with sufficient managerial or technical skills – the list grew. But at the same time, panel members repeatedly returned to the necessity of creating an ‘enabling environment’ – an environment where farmers themselves can take advantage of new funding, and new innovations, and create change on a large scale.

But who is going to create this enabling environment? Who is going to get the elephants out of the room? I believe, and we are going to recommend in our next draft of the paper, that each group has a role to play.

The private sector for example, will be a key partner in creating and orchestrating timely delivery of inputs, local NGOs in local capacity strengthening and knowledge transfer, national governments in prioritising farmer-focused infrastructure and policies, donor institutions in providing the needed linkages and funding, and farmer organisations in coming together to share information, become more powerful and negotiate effectively with private partners and the local government.

Some of the constraints, however, are really quite challenging and political. Dismantling trucking cartels supported by national governments, for example, is not something that IFAD is likely to take on.

So who will do it? Coming from a technical background, I more enjoy thinking about new seed varieties, or creative water management techniques, but I think it may be this enabling environment, or lack thereof, which will determine in which new directions smallholder agriculture will go.

About Sara Delaney

Sara Delaney is currently working as a Technical Knowledge Management Consultant with the West and Central Africa Division at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Prior to IFAD, she worked with the Agriculture for Impact team, led by Sir Gordon Conway, at Imperial College in London. She served as a US Peace Corps volunteer in Mali from 2005-2007. Sara has a Masters in Science, Society and Development from the Institute of Development Studies in the UK, and a Bachelors degree in Biological and Environmental Engineering from Cornell University in the US. She was editor and contributing author for the book Science and Innovation for Development, and recently authored The Right Tools for the Trade in the October edition of the UK Public Service Review – International Development.

We now believe rinderpest has been eradicated from the world. When finally confirmed in 2011, rinderpest eradication will be the only disease conquered after smallpox back in the 1970s.

Rinderpest was one of the most devastating virus diseases of livestock known to man. Closely related to measles in humans, rinderpest (from the German ‘cattle plague’) has probably been around since before the birth of Christ and devastated European powers in the 17th century.

With a mortality rate of up to 90%, major epidemics in the late 1890s killed over 80% of African cattle and other wildlife in southern Africa. Along the Horn of Africa, an estimated one-third of the population of Ethiopia and two-thirds of the Maasai people of Tanzania died of starvation.

In the 1980s the virus struck again, killing an estimated 100M animals from Senegal to Somalia in Africa and from Turkey to Bangladesh in Asia. Economic losses totalled US$2Bn in Nigeria alone.

Coordinating action

Following the development of a live attenuated vaccine by British virologist Walter Plowright in 1962, early eradication efforts in the 1960s and 70s eventually stalled, but showed the war might be winnable.

As the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) mobilised a new eradication campaign, the Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme, (GREP) in the 1990s, The Institute for Animal Health (IAH), Pirbright, UK, was designated the FAO World Reference Laboratory for rinderpest in 1994 and thereafter provided a global diagnostic service for all countries involved in the programme. This included rinderpest diagnosis, molecular characterisation, the provision of training and technical backup, and the production and quality control of diagnostic kits and research to further our understanding of rinderpest virus biology.

What lessons have been learned along the way?

The main factors in the success of GREP, from an IAH perspective, were the development of the right technology for field use in Africa and Asia, successful transfer of that technology along with technical backup, and the provision of standardised diagnostic kits that everyone could use.

Appropriate technology

The Plowright vaccine induces life-long immunity after a single vaccination, but only if the vaccine is maintained at the correct temperature before administration. The vaccine virus is rapidly inactivated at temperatures greater than 4C and so involved the strict use of a cold-chain. Seromonitoring was therefore essential to monitor the performance of the vaccination teams and to establish levels of herd immunity.

However, at the start of the Pan African Rinderpest Campaign and subsequently GREP, most laboratories were unable to carry out the virus neutralisation test to see if it had worked and mass testing was impossible.

To tackle this problem, IAH developed an indirect ELISA test (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) and underwent two-year field trials in Tanzania to make sure it worked under tough local conditions.

The test performed well and was later replaced with an improved test (a monoclonal antibody-based competitive ELISA) which gave greater specificity (>99.5%), sensitivity and reproducibility. It also greatly reduced the number of false-positive results which saved unwarranted and expensive field investigations. Furthermore, the use of this single test harmonised results and increased participants’ confidence when communicating during regional workshops.

Rapid diagnosis and detection was essential during the latter stages of the eradication programme. The development of a rapid pen-side test proved invaluable in countries such as Pakistan and Somalia and empowered the field veterinarians to take prompt action to stamp out the last remaining pockets of infection.

Technology transfer

The Rinderpest Laboratory Network established by the Joint Division FAO-International Atomic Energy Authority with the assistance of IAH Pirbright proved the ideal vehicle for technology transfer.

Annual co-ordination meetings were always linked to training courses and updates in diagnostic techniques, software programs or epidemiological strategies.

The success of this process is highlighted by the fact that the project holders are now regarded as experts in their own right and have assisted many other countries in establishing similar technology.

Standardised diagnostics

The provision of standardised quality controlled reagents played a major part in the eradication programme, and large batches of antigen and control sera were produced to minimise test variation between laboratories.

This was further enhanced by the use of a monoclonal antibody-based assay, and a single batch of monoclonal antibody was used for all the competitive ELISA kits produced.

External quality assurance panels showed a 98% agreement between laboratories in Africa; a much higher figure than that reported for HIV testing at that time.

Recommendations for the future

The strategy used for rinderpest eradication, although not applicable to all diseases, could be used as a blueprint for other diseases such as peste des petits ruminants (meaning ‘disease of small ruminants’, known as PPR virus).

Key factors for success include the availability of an excellent vaccine (which we have), secure long-term funding, the establishment of a Secretariat in FAO Rome as a global co-ordination unit, and evolution of the OIE Pathway to Freedom from Rinderpest guidelines which gave clear advice to all countries at each stage of the process.

However, let it not be forgotten that the drive and determination of a few key people was also essential to this remarkable success.

This story highlights the importance of continued support for applied, problem-driven research in agriculture and food security.

Addressing significant animal health problems through appropriate research and development – allied to excellent technology transfer and empowerment of local scientists – has played a key role in this major achievement.

About John Anderson

John Anderson joined the Institute for Animal Health (then the Animal Virus Research Institute) in 1968 as a technician in the World Reference Laboratory (WRL) for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) before being seconded to Nairobi, Kenya, in 1971 to work on FMD carrier status in local cattle and the role of wildlife in FMD epidemiology.

He returned to IAH Pirbright in 1977 and worked on FMD, rinderpest and bluetongue viruses and was designated Head of the WRL for rinderpest in 1994 where he developed the indirect and competitive ELISAs and pen-side test for rinderpest which were used throughout the Global Rinderpest Eradication  Programme.

He was in charge of the serological testing during the 2001 FMD outbreak in the UK and was awarded the MBE for Services to Animal Health in 2003. In 2006, he was appointed Acting Head of IAH’s Pirbright Laboratory until his retirement in 2008.

As we hurtle towards a world of peak oil production and phosphate depletion it’s easy to assume we have only technology, specifically genetic modification, to turn to in our efforts to ensure food security.

The numbers of people in the world who take seriously the notion that organic farming is part of the answer are certainly not in the majority.

But when the cost of inputs such as fertiliser are only going one way (steeply up) in the medium to long term, it makes absolute sense to learn from a farming system that protects and enhances the soil using recycled nutrients.

The regular counter argument is that organic farming cannot ‘feed the world’. I wouldn’t say that many of us involved in organic farming have ever set out to try that. Nor can we conclusively demonstrate that it’s possible – yet.

But as we seek ways to meet growing demand in the face of shrinking fossil fuels and other currently critical elements, surely we must look to ways of producing food that are more self-sustaining?

Yes, organic production currently carries greater costs, which leads to a premium on the price of products, but given that large parts of the developed world undervalues and wastes its food – an estimated 8.3M tonnes of food is wasted each year in the UK – maybe that is just what is needed to restore some balance.

Evidence is growing that it is a misconception that organic automatically means lower yields. In fact studies have demonstrated that developing countries can actually increase yields by adopting organic methods; parts of the world have shown increases of fifty to one hundred per cent in yield of all kinds of crops and because organic methods protect and enhance the soil that’s a sustainable increase (Pretty and Hine, 2001).

Moreover, organic farming puts poorer farmers in control of their own destiny, making them nowhere near as susceptible to the fluctuating (or rising) costs of inputs that fuelled the food price spike of 2007-08 and led to riots in more than 30 countries.

The results in developed countries are not so dramatic, but research (Badgely et al, 2007) going back two decades or more suggests that after an initial drop off in yield, of perhaps ten to fifteen per cent, organic farms in developed countries tend to recover to their pre-organic levels or beyond.

The organic approach is not about being old-fashioned in your farming; it’s about being smart and using everything that has been learned over decades about crop varieties and land management.

Yes, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) greatly concern the organic community. But to suggest that that concern is driven by a Luddite response to technology is to insult people who express their views on the topic.

Most of us can appreciate the advance of science, including its necessity and inevitability. What is most worrying is that in farming this advance will be at the expense of others (contamination of non-GM crops could be devastating for farmers, particularly organic ones) and driven more by the desire for profit than the imperative to prepare for the future.

GMOs are banned from organic food in Europe by law. That leads to an argument in its own right. However, if we start from the point that they are banned because that is the public consensus, then we should ensure that any spread in GM food respects that position – and that means ensuring robust, and above all fair, measures to restrict cross-contamination. This is something that governments currently seem unable or unwilling to tackle.

It feels like we are on the cusp of having to make some critical decisions. Sustainability or quick fix? Focus on increasing farming systems that are controlled by the farmer or controlled by the need to satisfy shareholders?

As always, the answer no doubt lies somewhere in between

About Richard Jacobs

Richard Jacobs is the Chief Executive of Organic Farmers & Growers Ltd., one of a number of control bodies accredited by Defra and approved to inspect organic production and processing in the UK.

He possesses a wide and authoritative knowledge of organic food and farming as well as the policies that govern it and is a member of the Government’s Advisory Committee on Organic Standards (ACOS) as well as the current chairman of the UK Organic Certifiers Group (UKOCG).

Next week, over 200 farmers, policymakers, agricultural researchers, agrodealers and non-governmental organisations from across Africa and around the world will be gathering in Namibia for the annual FANRPAN Policy Dialogue to discuss the state of food security in sub-Saharan Africa and future priorities for continuing progress.

Food security on the continent is still only a goal; the reality is that agricultural growth has been erratic, leaving one third of the African population chronically malnourished.

But with the right agricultural policies and programmes in place to support farmers, an economically productive and stable food supply is a viable future for Africa.  In fact, one estimate is that agricultural output in Africa could increase from $280Bn today to $880Bn by 2030.

To achieve this growth, farmers need access to quality inputs that help them to increase agricultural productivity, including improved seed, fertiliser and crop protection products as well as secure access to land and water resources. They need to be trained on crop and natural resources management, in particular climate change adaptation strategies, and given the means to changes the techniques they use in their fields.

Finally, farmers need to be supported in accessing markets through better post-harvest storage facilities and stronger infrastructure links, as well as information technologies that provide weather, crop and market alerts. These can form the basis for an inclusive marketplace and a fairer trading environment.

At the core of agricultural development lies the need for increased funding. The World Bank has calculated (PDF) that agricultural growth is at least twice as effective at eliminating poverty as growth from any other sector. Without investment into the back end of the agricultural production chain, these economic gains remain untapped.

Africa has a history of underinvestment in agriculture, which is being addressed by the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP).  CAADP was set up by the African Union  as part of its New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in 2003 to help African countries reach a higher path of economic growth through agriculture-led development.  In adopting the CAADP goals, twenty African governments have agreed to increase public investment in agriculture to a minimum of 10 per cent of their national budgets – substantially more than the four to five per cent average they commit today – with the aim of raising agricultural productivity by at least six per cent on average each year

And there is more promise. FANRPAN’s research into Malawi’s agricultural input subsidy programme has shown that from 2005, when the initiative was launched, to 2008, average maize yields in Malawi increased from 0.8 tonnes per hectare to 2.9 tonnes per hectare. In the space of five years, Malawi has transformed itself from being a food deficit nation to a grain exporter.

My recent video interview with the Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika outlines how this transformation can occur across the continent.

But while Africa has one-quarter of the world’s arable land, it produces only 10 per cent of its total global output, whilst holding an estimated 60 per cent of the world’s uncultivated, arable land. Better knowledge sharing, technology transfer and public-private collaboration are needed to help bridge this gap into the future.

The challenges for food security are multi-faceted.  Sectors such as livestock and fisheries, an area of focus at this year’s FANRPAN Policy Dialogue, are also important sources of livelihoods for many Africans. After many years of neglect, these sectors are also being recognised as means of entering new markets and generating wealth as well as being key social safety nets during lean times

However, livestock and fisheries are also amongst the most climate-sensitive agroeconomic sectors. Consequently, for the 200 million Africans who rely on livestock for their livelihoods, and the 10 million Africans employed in fisheries(not to mention the 70 per cent of Africa’s rural poor who keep livestock), climate change will have serious implications and must be addressed in the region’s climate adaptation strategies

Achieving food security in Africa will require a sustained effort from experts in every sector and from every discipline. Collaborative approaches and committed investments of time, technologies and research funding will guide the way to a more prosperous tomorrow

As a supporter of the Farming First coalition, we call on policy-makers and practitioners to develop locally sustainable value-chains fairly connected to global agricultural markets, and to continue creating knowledge networks and policies centred on helping subsistence farmers to become entrepreneurs.

About Lindiwe Majele Sibanda

Dr Lindiwe Majele Sibanda is the CEO of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) and is a spokesperson for the Farming First coalition

Livestock is and has been intertwined with African societies for centuries. They provide nutrition, labour, transport and fulfil major socio-cultural roles. It is estimated that 70% of Africa’s rural poor keep livestock and some 200M people rely on these animals for their livelihoods. Indigenous livestock are not only adapted to diverse African agro-ecological production systems – they are also unique and responsive genotypes shaped by the needs of African farmers.

The demand for livestock products is expected to increase with population growth, urbanisation and changing consumer demands. This presents a unique opportunity, but also an increasing threat for indigenous breeds.

Indeed, African cattle represent the logical starting point for improving of the productivity of the livestock sector on the continent. In the same way that the diversity of locally adapted European breeds was the source of highly productive milk and beef breeds of the northern hemisphere, African livestock diversity represents a valuable genetic resources waiting to be tapped.

There is, however, an increasing perception that the solution behind productivity improvement of the livestock sector in sub-Saharan Africa is through crossbreeding of local breeds with exotic ones; for example through the importation of semen and production of crossbreeds. The solution is attractive as it may combine the advantages of both worlds, local adaptation with high productivity.

But the solution is also a short sighted one that relies on the availability of the pure, locally adapted genotypes, which may rapidly disappear if they are not conserved, or we may see their genetic make-up increasingly diluted.

What is the alternative solution? First, we need a paradigm shift in our perspective and accept that contrary to the traditional thinking, African chicken, cattle, goat and sheep represent an unique genetic resource for improvement of productivity; after all they have produced, survived and fed millions of people across history.

Second, we need to invest much more on the understanding of the genetic adaptive attributes of African livestock. In other words, we need to apply genomics revolution technologies to the indigenous breeds and in parallel embark on large scale phenotype recording programs. African livestock need and deserve much more in the way of long term research investments.

Third, we need to respond to immediate demands and recognise that there is no ‘quick fix’ solution. Yes, European-African crossbreeding can be utilised for short-term delivery but only if this is undertaken in parallel with well thought out breeding improvement programmes.

Finally, we need to realise that we are racing against time. African livestock diversity is shrinking. The world needs to wake up now and support the development of in vitro African livestock biobanks before it is too late for conservation, further utilisation and characterisation activities that will help Africa and the world for centuries to come.

About Olivier Hanotte

Olivier Hanotte, a molecular geneticist from Belgium, joined the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in 1995 after a post-doc at the University of Leicester, UK, in the field of livestock and wildlife genetic diversity, and led the Improving Animal Genetics Resource Characterization project. In January 2009 he joined the University of Nottingham as Professor of Population and Conservations Genetics. He is member of the editorial board of Animal Genetics and The Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics.

© The University of York

No one says to their children, “Go into the woods and eat anything you can find. It is all natural, so it must be good for you.” But for some reason when we walk into the supermarket ‘natural’ is a key selling point for all kinds of foods.

My favourite example is a sweetcorn you can buy that claims to be ‘naturally sweet’. This is an absurd idea. Naturally, seeds are tough and indigestible – they are not sweet. Seeds are a plant’s babies, and the last thing most plants want you to do is eat their babies.

Naturally, plants don’t want to be eaten at all. We know this. We know natural plants are potentially extremely dangerous and not at all generous in providing us with food, otherwise we would let our children eat whatever they find in the woods.

There are some interesting exceptions. Plants bribe animals to help them carry their pollen to another plant, or their seed to a new location, but for the most part, natural plants are bristling with defences. It is precisely this reason that 10,000 years ago people invented agriculture.

The crops that feed the world today are not remotely natural. It’s taken farmers 10,000 years of selection to breed out the defences and other features inconvenient for farming or consumption that natural selection spent millions of years putting in.

So if we know that plants were not put on the planet for our personal benefit, and indeed natural plants are dangerous, why are we beguiled by the supermarket sales pitch that natural food is good for us?

I think it comes from the very clear evidence that we are not living sustainably and we are not eating healthily. High input farming and highly processed foods are damaging to the environment and to us.

The easy-to-sell solution to these problems is that since the things we are doing now are bad and the things we used to do were good, everything would be better if we ‘went back to nature’.

But since nature, as everyone really knows, is red in tooth and claw, this argument makes no sense at all.

We should not do less things; we should do different things. We need science to help us work out how to do farming more sustainably and eat more healthily. We need to work hard at this, and it is going to be difficult and involve changes to our lifestyles that we will not like.

Buying products labelled ‘natural’ in a supermarket is not going to help. Trying to sell things on this basis merely exploits peoples’ desire to do the right thing when we need that energy and idealism to bring about genuinely positive changes.   

About Ottoline Leyser

Professor Ottoline Leyser CBE FRS from the University of York received the Royal Society’s Rosalind Franklin Award in 2007 for her work on plant hormones and how they control plant development, which led to the publication of the book Mothers in Science: 64 ways to have it all (PDF) to show how women can manage both science and family.

Tracking plant pathogens is a vital part of agro-economic development, says Maurizio Vurro.  

As with human and animal diseases, the emergence or re-emergence of plant diseases is often due to man’s activities – a consequence of mass tourism, global trade, or changes to farming practises or the environment. 

Although our ability to diagnose and control diseases is greater than in the past, emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are still able to cause tremendous crop losses. In developing countries in particular, the economic and social impact is often underestimated as I, with colleagues, recently discussed in the journal Food Security. 

Cassava Mosaic Virus Disease, for example, is capable of reducing yields by 80-90% and suspends cassava cultivation in many areas of East Africa. Striga hermonthica, a parasitic weed, affects cereal cultivation across at least 5 million hectares in sub-Saharan Africa. And the rust fungus Ug99, which has overcome resistant varieties, has spread from Uganda and threatens most of the wheat-growing countries in the world. 

Countries with limited resources are threatened when pandemics occur on important food crops, such as Xanthomonas Banana Wilt, a bacterial disease that affects the food security of 70M people in Uganda. This kind of low crop productivity contributes directly to malnutrition, and indirectly to the spread of human diseases and the collapse of the environment because poor rural areas are abandoned with a concomitant phenomenon of urban overcrowding. 

In developing countries there are clear links between food insecurity and institutional fragility. The 2008 food crisis highlighted the acute vulnerability of net food-importing developing countries in the sub-Saharan Africa. In the past two decades, those countries have reduced investment in rural areas, exacerbating migration to cities and increasing the demand for food imports. This vicious circle further undermines the capacity of agriculture to produce the required food and increases dependence on food imports. 

Hunger is further worsened by the lack of public interventions, institutional fragility, limited public investments in rural areas, political and administrative chaos, war and local guerrilla action, and climate change. In this context, the effectiveness of humanitarian aid, in the absence of appropriate conditions to start productive activities, is largely frustrated. 

Surveillance of EIDs is thus crucial for developing countries’ agricultural self-sufficiency and wider social economy, but these technologies are often expensive and require technical preparation, economic investment and personnel. Given the cost, many developing countries have limited control systems; nor can they acquire and update lists of emerging pathogens within their borders. 

The consequence is that many diseases in developing countries simply spread without being recognized and monitored. 

In Western countries surveillance systems are easier to deploy because of existing community networks, there are more economic opportunities, and greater availability of the necessary technologies at affordable prices. Furthermore, in developed countries there are social safety nets to support those most affected; food reserves that limit the risk of famine; research systems and technical support services that enable management of those diseases or diversification to alternative crops; and warning systems that allow the prompt application of control measures. 

Similar systems must be urgently established in developing countries to avert the socio-economic disasters that can be caused by plant diseases. The development of a large EID-monitoring organization on a territorial basis, with clear roles and accountabilities, is of utmost importance.

About Maurizio Vurro

Maurizio Vurro has been a senior researcher at the Institute of Sciences of Food Production, National Research Council, since 2001. His main scientific interests are the use of microbes and natural metabolites in biological control, in particular against weeds. He recently led the project ‘Enhancement and exploitation of soil-biocontrol agents for bio-constraint management in crops’ within the 6th EU Framework Programme and is the author of more than 70 articles in scientific journals, three books, and seven book chapters.