The recent controversial debate on Monsanto’s involvement in USAID and Government of Nepal’s proposed pilot project to increase agricultural productivity has sparked a much-needed dialogue among key stakeholders. [break]
While much of the debate is rightfully focused on exploring and reevaluating the intentions, interests and track record of Monsanto and USAID, it is equally important to realize that this debate offers a platform for exploring the food security agenda and the role the government of Nepal should be assuming in guaranteeing national interests.
Food security became a pronounced and unrelenting global concern when the United Nations projected world population to exceed 9 billion by 2050. As projected, the world population of 6 million in 1999 reached 7 billion in 2011. At present, more than 2 billion, mainly from Asia and Africa, are plagued by hunger and malnutrition.
Each day, over 25,000 lives are lost to this ensuing global tragedy. Conventional agro-chemical-based agriculture, using the most advanced technology of genetic engineering and modification, has already exploited most of the earth’s resources.
The present state of declining global productivity and climate change, coupled with anticipated population increase by two billion, is alarming.
The challenges are complex and intractable: High population growth rate, increasing urbanization with no scope for agricultural land expansion, adverse weather events caused by climate change and declining productivity, eroding biodiversity and fragile ecosystem attributable to soil mining done to reap higher yield.
Nepal can no longer turn a blind eye towards this neglected global crisis. Nepal’s geopolitical and socioeconomic realities increase its vulnerabilities to food security.
The fact that Nepal borders China and India, the world’s largest and second largest populations, deserves extra attention regarding opportunities and challenges for securing food equity.
For 60 years, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has partnered with the Government of Nepal for agricultural development through agriculture research and extension.
Despite the assistance of USAID and other partner organizations, the Government of Nepal continues to struggle with the challenges of rapid population growth and declining agricultural productivity.
With the population growth from 9,327,000 in 1960 to 30,055,000 in 2011, food-exporting Nepal became net food importer. Presently, Nepal imports 135,000 metric tons of maize, the second major food crop of Nepal and poultry feed.
In this purview, USAID through its Nepal Economic, Agriculture and Trade Activity (NEAT), announced on September 13, 2011 a proposed partnership between the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC), USAID, and Monsanto Company on a pilot project designed to increase the productivity of poultry-feed maize.
Developed under US President Obama’s Feed the Future Initiative, this project aims to foster greater agricultural production and food self-sufficiency by promoting hybrid maize cultivation through the training 20,000 farmers in Chitwan, Nawalparasi and Kavre districts.
What stirred the debate is the involvement of controversial Monsanto, a Missouri-based transnational corporation with a track record of social and ecological irresponsibility.
Monsanto, the first producer of artificial sweetener, saccharin, has a history of producing industrial chemicals, herbicides (2, 4.5-T, DDT, Agent Orange and Lasso) that are hazardous to human health and environment.
Monsanto also introduced the bovine growth hormone rBGH or rBST (Pasilac) with adverse effects on animal health, and Roundup, the world’s largest selling pesticide.
Monsanto utilizes highly questionable Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURT), commonly known as the “terminator technology,” to make second-generation seeds sterile.
Given these practices, many lawsuits are filed in different countries against Monsanto for bio-piracy, corporate crimes, soil mining, and environmental destruction, and for seizing farmers’ right for saving seeds.
At present, Monsanto alone controls around 30% of global seed and agro-chemical market with its presence in more than 66 countries and exercises its business monopoly.
The World Bank attributes 75% of global food price inflation, extreme poverty and hunger to Monsanto. Monsanto has been accused of both contributing to and benefiting from food crises while simultaneously using it as property right (PR) platform to promote genetically modified (GM) crops behind the veil of solution to the crises.
Monsanto is a leader of Agro-chemical Intensive Agriculture, conventional agriculture, which has helped feed the world but at the cost of soil mining, food quality reduction and environmental degradation.
The use of hybrid seeds is not problematic, per se. It is the use of hybrid seeds created from genetically modified inbred lines, distinct from natural hybrids, which pose threats to agriculture, environment, human and animal health.
Natural inbred line hybrid seeds (with no alien gene, unlike the case in GM seeds) are superior in performance but demand first-generation seed and extra production inputs to realize the benefits. Since natural hybrid production is expensive, affordability and reliability of seed supply becomes a question.
This is the very reason behind promotion of composite and synthetic varieties of maize in Nepal despite their relatively lower yields than hybrids.
It cannot be denied that expansion of agricultural area and attempts to increase productivity through improved seeds (including non-GM hybrids) and agro-chemical-based management practices helped Nepal meet the demands of growing population. But the scope of agricultural land expansion is limited and use of hybrids and its conventional management practices are highly questionable.
Agricultural development in Nepal needs a new direction. At this juncture, the contentious debate over the proposed MoAC-USAID-Monsanto pilot project should be evidence-based and focus on the future of food security, keeping geo-political, socio-economic, agro-environmental sustainability and farmers’ rights in consideration.
Improperly planned pilot project could prove counterproductive and devastating to a predominantly agrarian economy. USAID Nepal Mission Director David C. Atteberry and US Ambassador to Nepal, Scott H. DeLisi, have indicated that the details of the proposed pilot project will be decided upon consultation with various sectors, including the private sector, academia, the MoAC, Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC), civil society, farmer groups and all other stakeholders.
Prime Minister Babu Ram Bhattarai has also indicated commitment to work towards meeting national interests.
The parliamentary hearing at the Natural Resources and Means Committee on December 11 has demanded clear explanation about the controversy from the MoAC. This discourse lays a foundation for a larger national policy discussion to envision better policies and ways for effective implementation.
While debating the use of hybrid seeds and Monsanto is critical, what deserves more attention is to finalize details of the project model to address the vital issues of soil fertility, farmers’ right for seeds, effects of agro-chemical inputs on environment, and impact on human health.
The Government of Nepal and USAID should ensure that hybrid seed production and supply be ethical, sustainable and affordable.
The debate is not about Monsanto, it is about the future of sustainable agricultural development in Nepal to meet the challenges of an agrarian but food-deficit country.
The discussion is not about the role of a single company but about the future of agricultural development, which is intricately linked to the type of seed any company could introduce in Nepal.
The potential blunders from the past should not be used to justify inequitable future policies. USAID reports that 80% of Terai and 10% of hills maize production comes from hybrids.
The more pertinent mandate here would be to investigate the quality and reliability status of hybrid seeds, crop management practices followed, and its effects on soil productivity and agro-ecology.
This is about Nepal’s future. The government, along with other stakeholders, needs to assume a more proactive stance to secure national interests.
New and improved technology should promote the use of hybrids produced from non-GM inbred lines and should be tested for adaptation and yield under eco-friendly management which enrich soil fertility.
The targeted training of 20,000 farmers on maize hybrid production practices should focus on appropriate eco-technology for soil fertility restoration, leading towards economically viable and sustainable maize production system development.
The writer is an academician at the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST).
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