I just read this Editorial in the 15 March 2008 edition of New
Scientist magazine and I simply must share it with you peeps!
Bad news is a journalist's bread and butter, a fact that is
regularly pointed out by those who blame television, newspapers,
and magazines for filling their world with stories and pictures of
doom and gloom. It is heartening, then, when the
doom-mongering pays off and has a postitive effect on people's
lives.
Almost a year ago we reported on how a virulent strain of
fungus was threatening the wheat harvests on which billions of
people depend on for survival (New Scientist, 7 April 2007,
p.6). We now understand that the article alerted the Chinese
leadership to the peril and that it has launched an emergency
research programme to develop strains of wheat resistant to the
disease. This is just the kid of result all journalists hope
for.
Unfortunately, we must also report the bad news that goes
along with this story. The fungus, known as Ug99, is set to strike the
wheat fields of south Asia even earlier than had been feared.
It may already have reached Pakistan, gateway to the breadbasket of
Asia. Unless we develop new varieties of wheat that do not
succumb to Ug99, it will threaten most of the world's wheat crops
and push prices even higher than they already
are.
For those of us living in well-off industrialised countries,
the prospect of a global food crisis may sound far-fetched.
It is easy to take food production for granted when supermarket
shelves are always filled. Yet growing enough for more than 6
billion people - especially when we are so bad at dividing it up
fairly - is no trivial business.
The threats of modern agriculture are myriad. Think of
the bluegtongue virus threatening Europe's livestock, or the H5N1
bird flu still ravaging chicken farms across Asia.
Over the past year, food
prices have risen dramatically - for several reasons. Drought
has caused poor harvests; there has been a growth in demand for
corn as a source for biofuels; the price of the oil needed in the
growing and processing of food has soared; and demand for food has
risen, thanks to a burgeoning population and increasing
prosperity.
Growing food has always been a struggle, and it is only
thanks to modern agricultural research that most poeple now have
enough to eat. Today we need that research more than
ever. The growing demand for meat can only add to the strain
on grain supplies, as livestock ened to eat too. Crop
diseases and insect pests are constantly evolving and adapting to
the genetic and chemical weapons we use to keep them at bay.
Agricultural researchers respond by constantly refining method of
disease and pest control, but it is a challenge to keep
up.
We need to work faster. The cheap solutions to the
problems we face have been exhausted, and as a result the effort
put into agricultural research and development is achieving ever
more meagre returns. The International Food Policy Research
Institute in Washington DC estimates that every unit of harvested
crop costs two-thirds more in R&D than it did 20 years
ago.
The story of Ug99
typifies this struggle. Famine used to be endemic in
India. It has been virtually eliminated largely because
researchers discovered genes in wheat that gave it resistance to
its most deadly disease, a fungus called stem rust, and used them
to develop rust-resistant strains. It was only a matter of
time before a stem rust emerged that got around those defences -
and now it has, in the form of Ug99. It is no exaggeration to
say that billions of people depend on our finding new kinds of
resistance to head it off.
One might have hoped the enormity of this impending crisis
would prompt western governments to invest in finding a
solution. No chance. Funding for research into ways of
dealing with Ug99 is slow, and it's the same story for agricultural
research across the board. According to the IFPRI, when the
rich contries no longer felt threatened by famine they simply
stopped funding research into maintaining and boosting yields of
staple crops. These days most agriculltural R&D is done
by private companies, whose interests are not primarily feeding the
masses.
This needs to change fast. The recent hike in food
prices should have alerted us all to what is going on, and
hopefully will inspire governments to a new reasearch effort aimed
at tackling the threats to food production. If dark stories
about what could happen if we don't get our act together spur
people to act, watch this space for more of them.
