ENVIRONMENT: North Looks South for ‘Real’ Green Revolution

By Stephen Leahy Reprint | | Print |

Stephen Leahy

BROOKLIN, Canada, Feb 25 2002 (IPS) - Canadian and U.S. farmers call it “the farm crisis”.

Prices for their crops and animals have been depressed for the past five years and longer while costs of seed, fertiliser, insecticides, and fuel have continued to rise. And the biotechnology revolution has not put more money in their pockets. Rather, seed costs have risen and some export markets have been lost.

“What we make from our farm has never been enough to support our family,” says Nettie Wiebe, a Saskatchewan, Canada grain farmer. “Despite our production increases, input costs always outstrip the price of commodities.”

Like others seeking solutions, Wiebe and her husband have converted some of their 565 hectares into organic production.

It turns out that Wiebe’s low-input ‘green’ agriculture is just what many farmers in the developing world are doing, according to a report by Nicolas Parrott at Cardiff University in Wales. ‘The Real Green Revolution’ shows the extent and success of organic and so-called agroecological farming – techniques long practised in the so-called developing world.

Agroecology is a blend of millennia-old farming practices and leading-edge biological science. It does not eschew pesticide use but relies on the ecological processes of the farm and the surrounding landscape to create sustainable agricultural ecosystems with minimal need for purchased inputs like pesticides and fertilisers.

“Organic and agroecological farming can significantly increase yields for resource-poor farmers, improve food security, and sustain and enhance the environmental resources on which agriculture in the South depends,” says Parrott.

Time and time again research has shown that traditional practices of the South that involve intercropping a combination of crops produces more food per hectare than the monocultures of the North, says Peter Rosset, an agroecologist and Chiapas, Mexico-based co-director of the Institute for Food and Development Policy, a U.S. non-governmental organisation that promotes food as a human right.

“American farmers produce more maize per acre but many studies have shown that small farmers in Cuba, Latin America and elsewhere in the South grow 100 to 1000 percent more total food per acre,” he says. “Yield is a very poor yardstick to measure agricultural productivity with.”

If the U.S. agriculture system is the most efficient in the world, as often claimed, Rosset asks, why does it need 30 billion dollars in subsidies every year? ” Most of this money goes to farmers with the most land and the best equipment,” he notes.

Parott’s report estimates that 15.8 to 30 million hectares of land are managed according to ecological principles in the South. Cuba leads the world in conversion to organic production methods. Faced with the U.S.-led embargo that cut off supplies of agricultural chemicals in the early 1990s, Cuba now produces 65 percent of its rice and 50 percent of its vegetables organically. It now exports its organic expertise to other countries, he notes.

The report offers many other examples. In Madhya Pradesh, India, average cotton yields on farms participating in the Maikaal Bio-Cotton Project are 20 percent higher than on neighbouring conventional farms.

In Madagascar, SRI (System of Rice Intensification) has increased yields from the usual two to three tons per hectare to yields of six, eight, or 10 tons per hectare.

In Tigray, Ethiopia, a move away from intensive agrochemical use and in favour of composting has seen an increase in yields and in the range of crops it is possible to grow.

In Brazil, the use of green manures and cover crops has increased yields of maize by between 20 percent and 250 percent.

In the highlands of Bolivia, the use of bonemeal and phosphate rock and intercropping with nitrogen-fixing Lupin species has significantly contributed to increases in potato yields.

The report provides “overwhelming evidence” that organic and agroecological practices in the South are not only highly productive but are better for soil quality and improvements in taste and nutritional quality says Doug Parr, a scientist at Greenpeace. The environmental group provided funds for the report.

These practices also allow a greater array of biodiversity than chemical-dependent farms, with more trees and a wider diversity of crops, says Parr.

Organic and agroecological methods vary from region to region and from farm to farm, says Rosset. This means there is nothing to patent and little technology to sell and few international agricultural research institutions work in this area. Moreover, most agriculture and economic experts from the South have been trained in the North and have a conventional agricultural mindset, he says. International trade agreements and economic policies, including massive subsidies, further support the status quo.

Parrott advocates an increase in funding for research and extension services for the organic sector and “developing innovative ways of promoting knowledge transfer between local producer groups.”

Canada’s Wiebe says organic farming offers advantages for small and medium-sized farms in Canada by reducing inputs and managing soil better. The common formula of larger farms and lower cost per unit produced is not the answer to the farm crisis of the North, she concludes.