D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 4, July/August 2000, p. 3)

Where is this extra food to come from? In the past decades, agricultural production kept pace with population growth because large additional tracts of land were brought under cultivation and production was intensified through higher yielding varieties and the massive use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. But the intensification and industrialisation of agriculture are reaching their limits. Up to 40 per cent of soils are degraded and in danger of losing their productivity. Annual production increases worldwide have dropped from 3 to 2 per cent. And new arable lands are hardly available anymore to increase production.

The only way out of the threatening crisis is to double efforts in agricultural research to develop methods to produce more from the available land without damaging the environment and the soils that sustain production. New varieties must be bred which need fewer chemical inputs and water and which can grow on marginal land. More attention must be paid to increasing yields from rain-fed and mountaneous areas.

But at a time when agricultural research for development deserves all the support it needs from the international community, donor funds are decreasing constantly. Controversial debates over the benefits of the Green Revolution and, more recently, over the risks of gene technology, have given a bad name to agricultural research. Efforts by private chemical and seed companies to patent seeds to the detriment of small farmers in developing countries have added to the mistrust, especially among NGOs and small farmers’organisations, of agricultural research.

In view of the urgency of boosting agricultural research and the ideological barriers weakening international support for it, it was a remarkable achievement that a conference in Dresden, Germany, for the first time brought all the stakeholders together to discuss what needs to be done to reverse the situation. The three-day conference, organised by the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) and financed by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), was attended by around 400 representatives from international and national agricultural research institutes, NGOs, the private sector, farmers’ organisations, and donor countries and institutions, and provided a platform for frank and intensive debates of the relevant issues.

With such a diverse participation, it came as no surprise that all speakers said in the end that differences of opinion continued to exist. But they also all agreed that it had been extremely useful to meet and discuss in Dresden. A “Dresden Declaration“ which was adopted by acclamation sums up the aims and visions of GFAR putting the emphasis on increasing food production, alleviating poverty and conserving the natural resources.

The important result of the GFAR conference is that some of the ideological barriers seem to have been broken down. World Bank Vice President and Chairman of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), Ismail Serageldin, in a brilliant speech pledged the support of his organisation for smallholder agriculture, poverty eradication and increased environmental protection - a speech which drew favorable comments even from the usually critical NGO scene. Klaus Leisinger of Novartis Foundation pleaded for a closer partnership between the private sector, NGOs and government institutions. Uschi Eid, Parliamentary State Secretary in the BMZ, promised more support for agricultural research which, as she said, should be oriented towards the needs of small farmers, give more attention to neglected food crops, and should aim at sustainability and the preservation of natural resources.

The Dresden conference showed that even controversial subjects such as modern biotechnology are no longer a taboo for discussion, although divergent views persist. While the jointly adopted Declaration speaks of the opportunities and potential negative impacts of new technologies, the international farmers movement Via Campesina warned against genetic engineering and the social impact it has on small farmer societies. Intellectual Property Rights and patenting of agricultural research results remain another hotly disputed subject.

All these differences notwithstanding, the GFAR conference represents an important step forward towards bringing all stakeholders together in a strategy to boost agricultural research for development. Considering the urgency of the problems ahead, no time should be lost to follow up the Dresden meeting with concrete action to promote what the Declaration calls Knowledge Intensive Agriculture accessible to small and poor farmers. Exchange of information, the establishment of research partnerships, and and the setting of a research agenda which is demand-driven and focussed on farmers’ perspectives are among the goals of GFAR.

Ismail Serageldin spoke in Dresden about the need for a “doubly green revolution“ when small farmers will use more genetically diverse crops, fewer chemical inputs, and apply integrated soil, water and nutrient management techniques to preserve the environment. If these are the goals of international agricultural research they deserve all the support from the donor community in the interest of a food-secure world.