by Hugh Grant*
If your family's lives depended on it, would you rather have $400 worth of grain from a food relief agency or $40 worth of seed?
Too often in under-developed nations, the answer has been the relief truck, without addressing an underlying cause of the problem, which is lack of high-quality seeds and other modern farm technologies that developed countries take for granted.
Here is the most ironic part of this equation: It would actually be cheaper to provide high-quality seed than rely on the relief truck.
That's what we found out in Malawi, one of the poorest countries on Earth. In 2004, drought wiped out this African nation's corn crop, the main source of food. The World Food Program sent tons and tons of grain. That addressed the short-term problem. A ton of corn grain, which cost about $400 to ship and deliver, was enough to feed a family of six for about a year.
The next year, however, Monsanto Co. provided 700 metric tons of hybrid, non-biotech corn seed to Malawi as part of a pilot project. Add in fertilizer, and the cost of producing corn locally was about $40. Resulting yields, however, were five to 10 times higher than previous years. Malawian farmers had money left over to buy a few chickens and shoes for the kids. For the first time in many years, farmers moved beyond subsistence farming - and had something to sell.
High-quality seeds were the road to security in Malawi.
Now flash to South Africa, to a meeting some months ago of small-holder farmers. A lively debate arose on the pros and cons of biotechnology, a technology that protects plants against insects and provides better weed control. In the midst of the argument, a tiny farmer, with a sun-battered face, asked a speaker who was critical of biotechnology: "Do you have a refrigerator?"
A bit taken aback, she responded, "Yes... I do."
He said, "I want a refrigerator, too."
To him, it was not just about feeding his family. It was about getting that little bit more from his farm production so he could get a refrigerator to stop the food from rotting.
In much of the developed world, high-quality seeds - both biotech and non-biotech hybrid varieties - have resulted in heretofore unimaginable yields. In 40 years, U.S. farmers have doubled corn yield to an average of more than 150 bushels. Many plant scientists believe it will take far less time to go from 200 to 300. New precise breeding techniques and biotechnology have improved yield and added protection within the plant against insects, weeds, disease and even drought.
We must squeeze every bushel out of every acre. Global population growth will double food demand in 20 years, not to mention new demands for alternative forms of energy such as ethanol. Yet there is 20 percent less farmland today than 50 years ago.
Meanwhile, what about the under-developed world, where families don't even have enough money to buy refrigerators, and where young girls spray pesticides by hand and hoe weeds instead of attending school? Norman Borlaug, Nobel laureate and father of the Green Revolution, who believes biotechnology is "pro-poor," talks of the need to democratize technology.
Technology providers such as Monsanto are working to develop new products. International institutions such as the Millennium Village Project and the Earth Institute of Columbia University are helping to identify specific needs in local areas.
NGOs can work to help deliver the solutions to local farmers. And governments can address infrastructure issues and put policies in place that help their farmers become more productive.
Corporations, research institutes, governments, foundations and NGOs must set their ideologies aside and cooperate in creative, workable partnerships that can bring the fruits of modern agriculture to other parts of the world.
Imagine the day when a sub-Saharan farmer can choose to plant drought-tolerant corn seed on his patch of land, just as a U.S. farmer will. Imagine having the cooperative relationships among us that can make this happen sooner rather than later.
I know this: Proud men and women everywhere would rather produce their own food than wait to unload it from the back of a relief truck.
*Hugh Grant is chairman, president and CEO of Monsanto Co.
DesMoinesRegister
"Corporations, research institutes, governments, foundations and NGOs must set their ideologies aside and cooperate in creative, workable partnerships that can bring the fruits of modern agriculture to other parts of world...."
What he means is, everyone must set aside any ideology that disagrees with Monsanto's plans for maximizing corporate profits and "externalizing" costs.
Oh, the great benevolent Monsanto - those wonderful, charitable people who sell seed with terminator technology in the third word so that those farmers have to buy seed from Monsanto every year; who founded a division to explore buying up third world water rights to expand their control over agriculture; and who sue small farmers who's crops are accidentally contaminated with their genetic property. Oh yeah, and who's lobbyists have helped to create a US farm policy that has destroyed the small farm and made Iowa's farmers into the worlds biggest welfare recipients.
Man, the arrogance of these people blows me away.
