by Lorna M. Calumpang, SEARCA KMU
03-September-2008 SEARCA News Release
The first one did not. But it made significant contributions to increasing food supply. Will a second green revolution end hunger? We cross our fingers, look to the sky and wish upon a star, it would.
Forty years ago, green revolution marched into the farmlands of developing countries with the promise that high-yielding varieties will bring more food supply; thus, bringing an end to world hunger.
Today, says Dr. Prabhu Pingali1, the Green Revolution still is an unfinished business. Though it has a good track record: cereals doubled in quantity because of increased crop yield performance, food prices dropping significantly, smallholder productivity growth triggering overall rural growth and rural transformation, and farmers were able to send their children to school.
However, green revolution was not for all food crops; but only for rice, wheat, and maize. In addition, it did not confront social/political issues: population increase, land ownership, equitable access to technology’s benefits; and among others, purchasing power of the poor.
“Poor farmers can't afford to buy fertilizer and other inputs in volume; big growers can get discounts for large purchases. Poor farmers can't hold out for the best price for their crops, as can larger farmers whose circumstances are far less desperate. In much of the world, water is the limiting factor in farming success, and irrigation is often out of the reach of the poor”.2
Green revolution was not accompanied with “policies for poor people to access various services: health, education, so that poverty continues to persist.”
Green revolution also failed to account for its environmental impacts: “injudicious use of water, pesticides, fertilizers, pollution of water.”
The second green revolution, would probably end hunger and/or poverty; yes, but perhaps, not totally. Maybe, if given the following considerations:
More success for the second green revolution if it will try to get the private sector thinking and technologies to incline to the needs of the poor people. On getting the help of the rich, Andy Hall3 cites some examples through Nanam’s and Aziz’s experiences.
Dr. Nanan of Ghana’s Food Research Institute explains that after a decade of researching new products to help poor cassava farmers, he realised that "if you want to help poor people you need to work with the rich. The rich are the industrialists who can develop new markets for the products made from the crops that the poor can produce." Dr Nanan has been working with the plywood industry to develop cassava-based glues and establishing supply chains to help link farmers to this new market for their crop.
Munzure Aziz4 from the Business Advisory Services Centre in Bangladesh makes a similar point about food process interventions. "There is an irony in the many development NGOs working on foodprocessing that have ideological problems with the idea of profit and private enterprise. If we are ever going to help the poor we have got to start talking to the private sector and taking business seriously in the development sector."
Of course, there will be more factors to dig under. The question remains: Will there ever be an end to world hunger and poverty?
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Endnotes:
1 From the presentation of Dr. Prabhu Pingali of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation during the 6th Asian Society of Agricultural Economists (ASAE) International Conference
2 Peter Rosset (http://www.foodfirst.org)
3 Innovating to prosper: Turning the ’new agriculture’ into a sustainable growth industry
4 Business Advisory Services Center
