Food Report US StateDept

8/2/2019 Food Report US StateDept

1/44U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS

21st-CenturyAgriculture

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS


2/44

International Information Programs:

Coordinator Daniel SreebnyExecutive Editor Jonathan MargolisCreative Director Michael Jay Friedman

Editor-in-Chie Richard W. HuckabyManaging Editor Charlene Porter Web Producer Janine PerryDesigner Chloe D. Ellis

Copy Editor Jeanne HoldenPhoto Editor Maggie Johnson SlikerCover Design David HamillReerence Specialist Anita Green

Cover:Vast gardens surround a uturistic city in a 21st-century landscapeimagined by artist Kauko Helavuo.

The Bureau o International Inormation Programs o theU.S. Department o State publishes a monthly electronicjournal under the eJournal USAlogo. These journalsexamine major issues acing the United States and theinternational community, as well as U.S. society, values,thought, and institutions.

One new journal is published monthly in English and isollowed by versions in French, Portuguese, Russian, andSpanish. Selected editions also appear in Arabic, Chinese,and Persian. Each journal is catalogued by volume andnumber.

The opinions expressed in the journals do not necessarilyreect the views or policies o the U.S. government. TheU.S. Department o State assumes no responsibility orthe content and continued accessibility o Internet sitesto which the journals link; such responsibility residessolely with the publishers o those sites. Journal articles,photographs, and illustrations may be reproduced andtranslated outside the United States unless they carryexplicit copyright restrictions, in which case permissionmust be sought rom the copyright holders noted in thejournal.

The Bureau o International Inormation Programsmaintains current and back issues in several electronicormats, as well as a list o upcoming journals, atttp://www.ameria.gov/publiations/ejournalusa.tml.Comments are welcome at your local U.S. Embassy or atthe editorial ofces:

Editor, eJournal USAIIP/PUBJU.S. Department o State2200 C Street, NWWashington, DC 20522-0501USA

E-mail: [email protected]

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE / MARch 2010

VOLUME 15 / NUMBER 3

ttp://www.ameria.gov/publiations/ejournalusa.tml

Getty Images


3/44

eJournaluSa 1

H

umanitys longest struggle has been the ongoing

battle, waged with dierent weapons on

dierent ronts, adequately to eed itsel. The

British scholar Thomas Malthus (17661834) doubted

humanitys chances. Writing in 1798, he concluded that

the period when the number o men surpass their means

o subsistence has long since arrived. The result, Malthus

predicted, would be misery and vice. On the whole,

Malthus has been proven wrong, at least until now. As

the India-born Nobel economics laureate Amartya Sen

pointed out in 1994, world population had by then grown

nearly six times since Malthus irst published his Essay

on Population. And yet per person ood consumption

had increased, lie expectancies lengthened, and standards

o living generally improved. A signiicant actor was the

Green Revolution, pioneered by the agronomist and

Nobel peace laureate Norman Borlaug (19142009), a

name that appears throughout these pages.

But the contest between population and ood supply

has not yet been deinitively won. It took the world

population millions o years to reach the irst billion,

then 123 years to get to the second, 33 years to the third,

14 years to the ourth, 13 years to the ith billion

writes Sen. The human population today stands at an

estimated 6.8 billion, o whom an estimated 1.02 billion

are undernourished. How we ashion a 21st-century

agriculture capable o eeding them is the subject o this

eJournal USA.

The marriage o technical prowess and agricultural

skill promises advances on many ronts: a greater

abundance o ood, much o it more healthul, andavailable in a global marketplace that aords more o

us access to this bounty. Agriculture even holds a key to

delivering new orms o clean energy.

The voices collected here include scientists,

administration oicials, and Indian and American

winners o the World Food Prize. All are united in what

Dr. Borlaug in his Nobel acceptance speech called a

vast army in the battle against hunger. More broadly,

21st-century agriculture represents a noble application

o our collective human ingenuity. May victory in thisstruggle come soon.

Te Editors

About This Issue

DaveReede/CORBIS


4/44

eJournaluSa 2

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE / MARch 2010 / VOLUME 15 / NUMBER 3

http://www.america.gov/publications/ejournalusa.html

21st-Century Agriculture

FOOD SECURITY

Every Link in the Food ChainAn IntervIewwIth M. vIjAyAGuptAAnd

phIlIp e. nelson

Two winners o the annual World Food Prizediscuss technologies and strategies or advancingagriculture and solving world ood needs.

Food for the WorldThe World Food Prize rewards individuals whohave improved the quantity, quality, or availabilityo ood or the world.

Bring Fish From the WatersM. Vijaya Gupta is known as the ather o theblue revolution or spreading the techniques andtechnologies o aquaculture to developing worldarmers.

Fresh From Farm to Plate

Philip E. Nelsons work assures the reshness andpurity o ood products.

U.S. Food Policy Aims forTransformational ChangeThe Obama administration is advancing a GlobalFood Security Initiative.

Life on the LandA photo story depicts the bond between armamilies and the land.

AGRICULTURE AND GLOBALIZATION

The Borlaug Legacy: A NewParadigm for Agricultural ResearchroGerBeAchy, dIrector, nAtIonAl InstItute

of foodAnd AGrIculture

The U.S. Department o Agriculture works toachieve a transormative change in agriculture tosupport the needs o the worlds population.

Feeding the Hidden HungerThe lack o proper nutrients is the cause omalnutrition, and global aid eorts address theproblem.

Crops Will Provide 21st-CenturyEnergy

elIsAwood,www.RealEnergyWriters.omAgriculture has the potential to provide crops andplant waste that can serve as uel in the emergingarea o bioenergy.

Bioenergy: Available, Renewable,SustainableBioenergy can be created rom many sources.

4

8

18

13

2210

2311

12

24


5/44

eJournaluSa 3

International Agricultural Trade:IllustratedA graphic look at the bounty o global agricultural

trade.

Agriculture in the Global Marketplacedr. c. petertIMMer, thoMAs d. cABot

professorof developMent studIes, eMerItus,

hArvArd unIversIty

Globalization is aecting agriculture production in avariety o ways rom crop selection to marketing.

Nature + Science = New CropsA photo story describes how science works to giveood crops qualities that nature overlooked.

Water Sustains AllAgriculture is the largest consumer o the planetsresh water supplies.

The Legacy of Plant LifeThe international community saeguards thousandso dierent plant samples and seeds to preserve thegenetic diversity o the plant kingdom.

By the NumbersA collection o statistics about global agriculture.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCESA collection o books, articles, and Web sites aboutthe latest trends in agriculture.

29

33

39

36

37

40

28


6/44

eJournaluSa 4

Produing enoug food to nouris populations ofte future is among te most urgent and ompellingproblems faing umankind today. Te World Food Prizeis presented ea year to an individual wo as advaneduman development by improving te quality, quantity, oravailability of food in te world. Launed in 1986, te

prize as onored te work of diverse individuals woseaievements ave foused on different aspets of agriulture,su as te development of stronger plants or teniques tomake fallow land produtive. World Food Prize laureates areamong te most qualified people to find ways to meet fooddemands of te future. Two of tese sientists offer teir viewson tese pages.

Dr. M. Vijaya Gupta of India won te 2005 WorldFood Prize as a leader of te blue revolution, a ampaignto promote aquaulture. his metods of fis farming ave

inreased te protein and mineral ontent in te diets of moretan 1 million families. Dr. Pilip E. Nelson, an Amerianitizen, olds te 2007 World Food Prize for is tenologialbreaktrougs revolutionizing te food industry in te area ofsanitary, large-sale storage and transportation of fres fruitsand vegetables.

Question: What do you consider to be the single mosteective action that could be taken in the near term withavailable technologies to increase world ood production?

Gupta: I think the most eective action that is neededis technology and inancial transer rom the developedcountries to the developing countries. I consider this tobe the most important action i you are looking at short-term gains in production. We need a technology transer

Every Link in the Food Chain

An Interview With M. Vijaya Gupta and Philip E. Nelson

Juice packaged in boxes stays resh because o the work o World Food Prize winner Dr. Philip Nelson.

APIma

ges/Imaginechina


7/44

eJournaluSa 5

along with the inancial assistance to implement thesetechnologies in developing countries.

Presently agriculture productions are low in most o the

developing countries as compared to the developed countriesdue to lack o appropriate technologies rom productionto marketing and the inancial resources necessary orthe governments to implement development projects.The developing countries need the improved productiontechnologies especially in the area o biotechnology andgenetics and improved seeds without excessive royalties or increasing ood production in the near term.

Nelson: Id certainly agree with technology transer. Ithink the main thing we really need to ocus on is thetotal ood chain. Production is critical, but also preserving

that product ater it has been harvested and beore it isdelivered to the consumer. I would say we could have abig immediate impact by looking at that total ood chaindelivery system.

Q: An estimated 1 billion people globally dont haveenough to eat. I have heard it said that adequate oodis produced in the world, but it just isnt available to allthe people who need it. Is that what you gentlemen aresaying i distribution or storage were better, the hungerproblem would be solved?

Gupta: Yes, probably storage is one thing because thereare quite a bit o losses in transportationand storage. But besides that, you need tohave adequate ood production, and accessto the ood is another concern becauseo the poverty. In India, some years wehave surplus ood production, but thegovernment doesnt have adequate silos tostore the surplus ood during the monsoonrains. On one side we have the excessiveproduction; on the other side, people are

starving and dying because they do not havethe purchasing power.

Nelson: I agree with all that. The biggestthing that we misunderstand is thatmalnutrition is probably because o poverty.So i we can get some unding in thehands o the poor, and get the distributionaccomplished, we could go a long way inreducing starvation and hunger.

Gupta: Presently, what is happening is starvation andhunger in the developing countries. Food aid is cominginto the countries where there is need. But we have to

develop the production within the countries or withinthe region as that will create livelihoods and employmentopportunities and produce the ood at an aordable price.We have to look at that, rather than growing the ood inthe developed countries and then transporting over longdistances to the developing countries at a very high cost.

Nelson: I agree with that 100 percent. Theres no questionthat were always going to need agencies like the WorldFood Programme, and other aid agencies, because onatural disasters as we saw earlier this year in Haiti political unrest, or other unoreseen, disruptive events. We

are going to need that kind o emergency input, but wevegot to establish agriculture in the local communities anddevelop markets or their goods at the local sites.

Q: Turning now to the ongoing progress in the areaswhere you gentlemen specialize, Dr. Gupta, are you seeingurther expansion o small-scale aquaculture ventures?

Gupta: Very much so. Though my work was originallyconcentrated in Asia, now the same technologies andmethodologies are being transerred to Arican nations. Iyou look at their core concern, 90 percent o the worldsaquaculture production comes rom Asia. So lots o

Bodies o water in low-lying Bangladesh give local people an oppor tunity to increase ood

sources through aquaculture. Dr. M. Vijaya Guptas promotion o aquaculture helped to increase

sh production in Bangladesh by tenold.

Courtesy o World Fish Center/Fern Corn


8/44

eJournaluSa 6

eorts have been made in the past in Arica to take thesetechnologies rom Asia in toto and transer them to Aricawithout taking into consideration the social, economic,and cultural aspects o the people in those countries. Andthis eort has ailed. Millions o dollars have been putinto these countries by the donor nations. So that was amistake that had been made in the past.

My research is concentrated in starting thedevelopment o technologies by working closely withthe communities, irst understanding their socialbackground, economic situations, and cultural aspects,and then developing technologies that are suitable to thosecommunities.

The second aspect that we looked at was the ishproduction by the small armers to improve theirnutritional status by consuming the ish they have grownin their backyard ponds. Our assumption at that timewas that theyll be able to eat more o the ish they have

produced and have better health. But this was a mistakethat has been made in the earlier stages o our researchbecause the small armers are looking or cash economy.They want the cash income because their needs are muchmore than eating the ish. So what we ound in our workis that actually 80 to 90 percent o the ish produced bythe small armers, even rom homestead ponds, are soldin the market as they etch high prices. Then theyll buycheaper dried ish or their own consumption and otherdaily necessities. This has resulted in improved nutrition,

not because they are eating the ish they have produced inthe homestead pond, but because o the cash income theywere able to generate through arming ish in their ponds.

So this is what we have taken into considerationin my work, closely understanding their needs, and themarket demands, and developing technologies that willbring cash income to these poor households.

Q: Dr. Nelson, how do you see that the storage andpreservation technologies in which you specialize may beapplied to the output o aquaculture producers to greatereect?

Nelson: Im very excited about Dr. Guptas work becauseI think it really contributes signiicantly to our world ood

security. I have a slide I use in presentations that uses theChinese proverb: Give a man a ish and you eed him ora day; teach a man to ish and you eed him or a lietime.I add another line to that: I you teach a man to preservehis ish, he will live orever, eed a community, and havesome money.

So that is the ocus o my activity, on that piece othe total ood chain, trying to give developing worldarmers the means to preserve ish, grains, ruits, andvegetables, and then also to develop local markets. Inmany developing countries, now in their large cities, thereis a greater demand or more product. I small, developingworld armers can learn how to produce and transportproduct to ulill that demand, I think we have someopportunities now to have a major impact on poverty andhunger.

Q: Small armers in developing countries are requentlylacking adequate vehicles to get their products to market,or passable roads that lead to the market. How do donornations help address those problems?

Nelson: It will take a team eort. Addressing just one

aspect wont do. Theres got to be market development,improved inrastructure. Certainly it is more complicatedthan simple technology transer. We have some goodexamples where pockets o these activities are working.

In Malawi, a project called Millennium Villages hasbrought signiicant improvement to villages that includeagriculture, water conservation, health improvement,improved education, etc. Still, Arica lags behind the resto the world in all aspects o inrastructure development.

We want to take those examples and multiply them. I

Development o markets at the local level, such as this one in Nepal, is

another step toward improving access to ood and building ood security,

experts say.

AP

Images/KikiCalvo


9/44

eJournaluSa 7

hope to do that by having an international center, whichwill be ocused on ood technology development and theexpansion o markets. Im hoping or a major thrust withlots o support rom an array o organizations to ocus onthis activity.

Q: Give us one o these good examples you reer to.

Nelson: Working with plant breeders, ood technologistshave ound a mutant variety o sorghum grain. A proteinwithin that grain acts a lot like wheat protein. To acountry like Senegal where they like baguettes, theyimport all the wheat to make the bread that the localpeople desire and want. The concept were testing nowis that this mutant sorghum strain would produce agrain that could be used to replace, maybe, 50 percento the imported wheat with the locally grown sorghumgrain. Were hoping that would produce a baguette thatis acceptable to the population. You can imagine howthat would improve the market opportunities or the

local armers and reduce the need or imported wheat inSenegal.Food prices are another actor in world hunger. When

you are importing great quantities o commodities, thatcan be a problem and its a drain on their resources.

In Malawi, were working with women, anddeveloping small, entrepreneurial groups that will be ableto better market their products. But were talking about10 small groups and we need to spread this model 10thousandold.

Q: Dr. Gupta, will you share an example where a villageadopted some o your aquaculture techniques andimproved overall quality o lie or its people?

Gupta: Take, or example, my work in Bangladesh, whereI went way back in 1986. As you know, two-thirds o thecountry goes underwater or about our to six months othe year. Theres so much water, but very little ish, eventhough ish is the most important commodity in the liveso the Bangladeshis. The country is looded almost everyyear, so the rural households construct their small hutsand houses on elevated land. To have an elevation or thehouse, they dig some soil rom land adjacent to the house,and in the process they create small ditches or ponds.There were hundreds o thousands o such ponds and

ditches in the rural scenery. When I went there, they werelying allow, covered with water hyacinth, an obnoxiousaquatic weed, and were breeding grounds or themosquitoes. So I was looking at how we could use theselittle ponds that could provide nutrition or the amilies.

Im a biologist, so I didnt know at that time aboutthe rural way o lie the culture o the people, orthe economy o the people. I joined hands with someo the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) othe country who were working at a grassroots level sowe could move aster toward aquaculture that couldincrease the amily income and improve the nutritiono the amily members. Once these nongovernmentalorganizations were convinced o the economic viabilityo these technologies, we went to the villages; irst wemade an eort to understand the people, their culture,their economic situation. Then we started with small,low-cost technologies without risk o investment, tryingthe technology in their ponds, demonstrating thesetechnologies to them.

We went to a number o villages, and actually wehad more than 10,000 armers as collaborators in ourtechnology demonstrations and on-arm research. So

once we were able to show that the unutilized ponds andsmall roadside ditches can give anywhere rom two tothree tons o ish per hectare within our to six monthso time, there was tremendous response and adoption otechnologies.

I should say that this has revolutionized ruralaquaculture that has led to improved livelihoods andnutrition o the rural populace. That was the irst step wedid.

A sherwoman in Cameroon displays the catch. Fish is a major source o

dietary protein or Aricans.

CourtesyofWorldFishCenter/RandallBrumett


10/44

Second, we realized that most o the rural womenwere working in the house, but not employed otherwise.We thought that i we could involve the women in this

low-cost, low-input simple technologies, the womenwould add income to the amily in addition to that o thehusband, who works as an agricultural laborer or someother position as that. So we motivated them, trainedthem, and the NGOs came orward with small loanswithout any collateral. This has worked very well. Nowabout 60 percent o rural ish armers in Bangladesh arewomen.

So that has resulted in increasing the householdincome, and improved the status o the woman in thehouse and also in the society. Beore that, she was just aworker.

I have seen a picture, promoted by one o the NGOsthere, o a woman with 12 hands. One hand is holding

the baby, the other is sweeping the house, the other iscooking, another cutting the irewood, and on and on.The title o the painting was My Wie Does Not Work.

She does everything! But unless she is bringing in a cashincome, she is not regarded as working. So thats whywe brought women into the picture with a low-inputtechnology. Then once they got trained, and got theconidence, they wanted intensive production technologiesor higher beneits. Now some o them are involved inish-seed production [controlled breeding o ish as in ahatchery], which is more lucrative than ish aquaculture.

When I went to Bangladesh the aquacultureproduction was less than 100,000 tons. Now it is nearing1 million tons. So it is not only increasing the production,but creating livelihoods or rural communities where there

are very ew opportunities or income.

Food for the World

For more than 20 years, the World Food Prize has rewarded individuals rom

any country who have made great strides in improving the quantity, quality, oravailability o ood or the world.

The prize represents a dream o Dr. Norman Borlaug. Known as the athero the Green Revolution, Borlaug devoted his lie to increasing agricultureproductivity. The methods he pioneered provided greater crop yields to eedexpanding populations in the developing world. Ater winning the 1970 NobelPeace Prize, Borlaug envisioned a similarly prestigious award to ocus attentionon agriculture and to inspire others to achievement in the ield.

Since its 1986 inception, the World Food Prize, a $250,000 award,has recognized scientists and politicians rom all world regions or diverseaccomplishments. It is sponsored by businessman and philanthropist John

Ruan and is headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, a city in one o the great U.S.arming regions.Dr. Gebisa Ejeta, an Ethiopian expert in plant breeding and genetics, won

the Food Prize in 2009 or his development o sorghum hybrids that can surviveharsh conditions. Sorghum is one o the worlds principal cereal grains, a dietarymainstay in some regions. Ejetas achievement will increase crop productivity andenhance ood supplies or hundreds o millions o people in sub-Saharan Arica.

Other winners have been recognized or making unproductive land suitableor arming, developing new plant hybrids, and designing social programs to eedthe poor.

Dr. Gebisa Ejeta, winner o the 2009

World Food Prize, works in a eld o

sorghum, a primary ood grain in many

countries. He developed sorghum hybrids

that can survive harsh conditions.

eJournaluSa 8

CourtesyofPu

rdueUniversity


11/44

eJournaluSa 9

Q: Political actors can also be inluential in ood security.Policies can encourage or discourage production, andcertainly there are regimes in the world that dont place

great importance on the nutrition and well-being otheir people. How do you weigh the political issuescontributing to hunger?

Nelson: Im a scientist, a technologist, so that question isbest posed to others. But certainly that is a major barrierin a number o areas o the world, particularly Arica.We have seen what can be done in countries where thathas changed. Malawi is a good example. India is goingthrough a renaissance as the government is beginningto ocus on developing more processing techniques as away to preserve their products and get them distributed.

Governments can make a big dierence.

Gupta: We are not just to look at technology, but mustalso look at procurement prices or armers. When thereis a bumper crop, the market price comes down and thearmers are not able to make any proit. On one side, theinput costs the ertilizer, the pesticide are goingup while on the other side, there is no guaranteed orminimum price or their commodity. It has happened inmy country when there is a bumper crop, the marketprice comes down and the armers are not able to recoverthe expenses incurred or producing that crop.

Because o this, at times the armers involved in oodproduction are moving away rom ood crops toward thearming o commercial crops cotton, tobacco, sugarcane, and things like that. So the government needs toensure a minimum price or the armers, which will takecare o their well-being.

Q: The great unknown challenging global agriculturetoday is the eect that climate change may have as timeunolds. Lets talk about your expectations a moment. Dr.Gupta, take us back to Bangladesh, a low-lying country

that will be especially vulnerable to the sea level rise that ispredicted to result rom climate change.

Gupta: Much work has been done with regard to theimpact o climate change on crops, but not muchinormation available as it relates to ish. Nevertheless,looking at what might happen in the oceans, there is going

to be a big impact on capture isheries. Global warmingwill change the ish diversity, the ish distribution, andabundance. Climate change and global warming will

result in the acidiication o the seawater that will havean impact on shell-bearing organisms, like the shrimp,oysters, clams, etc. To an extent, this will have an impacton aquaculture. So we are looking at developing strains oish that are tolerant to salinity. So more needs to be doneto mitigate the impact o climate change.

Q: Dr. Nelson, whats going on in the processing andpreservation links o the ood chain to cope with climatechange?

Nelson: Climate change is putting pressure on the

geneticists and plant breeders to develop varieties that canwithstand droughts and reduced temperatures. That parto the production chain is critical, and without that kindo activity, I think were looking at some major eects. Onthe other hand, as climate changes that means there willbe dierences in the production areas. That means moredistribution is going to be required as we move productsrom one area to another, as temperatures and climateslend themselves to production.

I mentioned earlier that we are beginning todevelop an international center here at Purdue. Wevereceived some unding to do that, and the ocus will beon technology and market development and reducingproduct losses in that part o the world where hungerthreatens populations. We think there is a need to bringinternational ocus to this area o the ood chain, reducehunger, and increase ood security.

Gupta: I think that improving the livelihood o the armerhas to be part o the solution too. Food production byitsel will not solve the problem unless we can reducepoverty and hunger. So we are working rom theperspective o creating livelihoods and improving the lives

o the people in rural communities.n

The opinions expressed in this interview do not necessarily refect the views orpolicies o the U.S. government.


12/44

Bring Fish From the Waters

Farmers everywhere have aced the same problem or millennia: They need land and rain to coax a crop rom theground.

M. Vijaya Gupta won the World Food Prize in 2005 because he ound a new answer to that age-old problem. Heshowed poor people in South and Southeast Asia how to yield a crop rom abandoned ponds, roadside ditches, andother unused bodies o water. He showed them how to recycle what was thought to be arm waste weeds, manure,

and rice bran and use it as eedto raise a crop o ish.

With these lessons romthis Indian scientist, more than1 million poor amilies haveincreased the protein and mineralsin their diets, contributing to

better health and greater longevity.Called a leader in the blue

revolution, Gupta taught pooramilies to convert small bodieso water into mini-actories,producing ish or ood. He,and organizations he recruitedto assist, taught aquaculturetechniques to poor people,training them to breed ish andincrease yields or greater income.Guptas work began with theIndian Council o AgriculturalResearch in the 1960s and spread

over the decades to Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia, and other countries.In Bangladesh alone, ish yields increased rom 304 kilograms per hectare involved in aquaculture to more than

5,000 kg per hectare. In his native India, his aquaculture techniques increased yields as much as twentyold.Guptas work has ocused not on yields alone, but also on sustainability. He coordinated the International Network

on Genetics in Aquaculture to encourage support or maintaining biodiversity, and has trained some 300 Asian scientistsin developing sustainable production techniques.

According to the World Food Prize citation, Dr. Gupta has been a lielong catalyst in expanding the global reachand eectiveness o aquaculture.

Gupta has been a consultant to many organizations such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the

U.S. Agency or International Development, the U.N. Development Programme, the U.N. Food and AgricultureOrganization, and others. Gupta is a retired assistant director general o the World Fish Center and remains a seniorresearch ellow at that organization, devoted to reducing poverty and hunger through the improvement o isheries andaquaculture. n

eJournaluSa 10

Dr. M. Vijaya Gupta (center) taught aquaculture techniques to rural people in their South Asian villages.

CourtesyoftheWorldFoodPrizeFoundation

World Food Prize laureate 2005


13/44

I youve ever had soup or milk or juice rom a box, then you know the work that won the World Food Prize in 2007.Aseptic (sanitary) ood processing technologies allow consumers in developed nations to toss a box o juice in a picnicbasket. But these methods also preserve crops, prevent spoilage, and increase the availability o sae and nutritious oods.

Dr. Philip E. Nelson developed innovative breakthrough technologies, which have revolutionized the ood industry in the area o large-scale storage and transportation o resh ruit and vegetables, according to the World Food Prizecitation. Aseptic ood processing allows juices and other liquid oodstus to be packaged and shipped around the worldin mass quantities.

Heres how it works. Once plant oranimal products are made into ood ruits into juice, or instance Nelsonsprocess allows sterilization o the ood andthe package, and the transer o the ood

into the package. The output is a sae,stable product that can be easily transportedwithout rerigeration, and can remain instorage or considerable periods o timebeore being shipped to market or beingused by the consumer.

In the process, ood is passed througha thin pipe in which it is rapidly heated tokill any pathogens, then quickly cooled tomaintain the reshness o the ood. Nelsonbegan his innovative work while on theaculty at Purdue University in Indiana.The process already had been developed,but Nelson ound ways to apply it on alarge scale, as large as the 500,000-galloncontainers used in intercontinental shipping.

Nelsons techniques have beneitteddeveloping world countries where cropspoilage can consume as much as 50 percento yields in some places. Aseptic processinghas also been a key technology in theexpansion o eeding and nutrition programsin the developing world and in providing

stores o products available or transport toregions stricken with disaster, such as the2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

Nelson is the Scholle Chair Proessoro Food Processing in the Department oFood Sciences at Purdue University in WestLaayette, Indiana. n

Fresh From Farm to Plate

eJournaluSa 11

Dr. Philip Nelson won the World Food Prize or his development o packaging methods that

allow sae and sanitary transport and storage o liquid oods and juices.

CourtesyoftheW

orldFoodPrizeFoundation

World Food Prize laureate 2007


14/44

U.S. Food Policy Aims for

Transformational ChangeTheObamaadminisTraTiOniniTiaTiveTOimprOvefOOdsecuriTywOrldwide

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization

reports that one in nearly every six people

lacks adequate ood to live an active and

healthy lie.

APImages/SaurabhDas

The true sign o success is not whether were the source o perpetual aid that helps people scrape by, its whether we arepartners in building the capacity or transormational change.

President Obama in Gana, 2009

Secretary o State Hillary Clinton and Secretary o Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced details o the U.S. Food SecurityInitiative on World Food Day in October 2009.

The goals are:

Reduce hunger sustainably,

Raise the incomes o the rural poor,

Reduce the number o children suering rom under-nutrition.

Five key principles guide the initiative:

The United States will work with partner countries to create and implement plans.

The initiative will invest in the tools necessary to support armers, their skills, and perseverance.

The initiative will coordinate closely with local and regional eorts.

The initiative will support the multilateral institutions combating world hunger.

The initiative will be a long-term and accountable U.S. commitment.

In fulfilling the initiative, scientists and experts at the U.S. Department of Agriculture will:

Apply themselves to improving the nutritional and productive value o crops around the globe;

Help partners resolve technical challenges related to irrigation, crop improvement, pest eradication, and other

problems;

Help other nations train their uture agricultural leaders.

U.S. oicials emphasize that ood security is important in achieving economic, environmental, and national security. n

eJournaluSa 12


15/44

eJournaluSa 13

Life on the Land

Anthropologists have long believed that agriculture provided the seeds rom which civilization grew. When earlyhumans realized how they might nurture the growth o ood plants, rather than simply orage or their ruit, many gave

up a nomadic lie to tend the same land each year. Scholars o early human civilization believe that this settled liestyle,

and the cultivation o crops, led to a need to barter or sell the harvest, and so came markets, settlements, and towns.Agriculture has served as a orce to build communities throughout human history the shared work o the ields,

the shared bounty and hardship, the community celebration o the harvest.

In many countries, rural populations have dwindled as arming has become more mechanized and young people

seek opportunities in the cities. The dominance o arming as a way o lie has diminished in industrialized countries.

World demographers calculate that recent years marked a turning point where more people live in cities than in the

country. Still, a shared lie on the land remains a bond or amilies and communities in many places. What they produce

is the ood, iber, and uel o the entire population, nurturing and sustaining us all each day. n

An Indian armer goes to work in a paddy eld near Gauhati, India.

APImages/A

nupamNath


16/44

eJournaluSa 14

First lady Michelle Obama invited

elementary school children to the White

House in 2009 to help plant a vegetable

garden. She also is leading a campaign to

combat childhood obesity and to promote

the health benets o eating resh oods.

Farm workers carry

cucumbers to market

in Allahabad, India.

Agriculture employs

more than hal o

Indias population,

although it comprises

less than 20 percent

o the economy.

Village women separate dust rom rice grain, the most impor tant crop

o Bangladesh. About 45 percent o the population works in agriculture.

Seasonal monsoons food nearly a third o the country each year,

requently destroying crops and causing extensive damage to agricultural

inrastructure.

This roo garden atop Londons Traalgar

Hotel is part o an eort to create new

gardens across the city where citizens

may grow ood or themselves or their

communities. The Capital Growth scheme

has provided both nancial support and

coaching to create 100 gardens around

the city.

APImages/GeoffCaddickPAWire

AP Images/Rajesh Kumar Singh

APImages/Ale

xBrandon

Women armers share their lunch in a eld in southern Jordan. Almost

50 percent o arm workers in many countries are women, and they

play a vital role across the range o agricultural systems including

production, processing, and marketing o arm products.

AP Images/Mohammad Abu Ghosh

APImages/PavelRahm

an

Life Land


17/44

eJournaluSa 15

Chinese armers operate a reaping machine, harvesting

wheat in Jiangsu province. China is the worlds biggest

grain producer, and aims ur ther to boost production to

eed its population, approaching 1.4 billion, the largest in

the world.

AP Images/Qiu Wenshan/Imaginechina

Young men har vest squash on a arm in New Brunswick, Canada. Agriculture

comprises only 2 percent o the Canadian economy, but its vast land expanses

allow this North American country to be the worlds second largest producer o

rapeseed, grown or animal eed; the vegetable oil, Canola; and biouel.

TedSpiegel/NationalGeographicStock

A amily in Poland arms

at the oothills o the

Tara Mountains. About

60 percent o the

nations land is devoted

to agriculture and the

country is a signicant

exporter o bacon, ham,

and rozen ruits andvegetables.

JohnEastcott&YvaMomatiuk/NationalGeographicStock

Life Land


18/44

eJournaluSa 16

A shepherd milks sheep, a product that ranks ourth in Jordans overall

agricultural output. Although agriculture remains economically important,

its share o Jordanion gross national product has been in decline as the

industrial and service sectors o the economy have expanded.

A armer and his wie sur vey their soybean crop in the U.S. state

o Iowa. This couple owns one o more than 88,000 arms in the

Midwestern state.

RussMunn/AgStockImages/CORBIS

Farmers carry bundles o straw to market in Agartala, India.

The straw is used as cattle eed in India. Indian armers

lead the world in production o lemons, limes, and other

tropical ruits.

AP Images/Ramakanta Dey

APImages/Mohammad

AbuGhosh

Diverse people meet in community gardens, such as this one in Roanoke,

Virginia. Forty gardeners share a space in a working class neighborhood.

Burundian reugee Shemezimana Ezekiel meets garden ounder Mark

Powell (center) and Judy Powell.

AP Images/The Roanoke Times/ Kyle Green

A armer works in his cocoa plantation in Brazils Para state . Brazil is a

major ood supplier to international markets, with the agricultural and ood

sectors comprising 28 percent o the countr ys gross domestic product.

Economic and trade stability and regulatory reorms have encouraged

agriculture and boosted the nations output in recent years. Brazil is an

important producer o sugar, ethanol, bee, poultry meat, and coee.

AP Images/Paulo Santos

Life Land


19/44

eJournaluSa 17

A Chinese woman in Guangxiprovince waters her vegetables,

using water carried by buckets

rom the lake in the background.

China is a major producer o

a variety o vegetables such as

carrots, turnips, eggplant, squash,

and onions.

APImages/GregBaker

A armer rom the U.S. state o Illinois

handles soybean seeds in a bin attached

to planting machinery that will sowmultiple seed rows. This armer grows

corn and soybeans on his 525 hectares.

Nearly 80 percent o the states area is

agricultural land, divided into more than

75,000 arms. Marketing o soybeans

accounts or about one third o the

states $9 billion annual agricultural

production..

APImages/SethPerlman

Life Land


20/44

eJournaluSa 18

Norman Borlaug applied te latest tenologial and sientifiadvanes to te age-old goal of feeding te worlds people andrevolutionized food prodution. Te U.S. Department ofAgriulture (USDA) aims to ontinue is work and aieve

equally transformative ange for te ealt of global soiety.Roger Beay is ief sientist and diretor of teNational Institute of Food and Agriulture in te U.S.Department of Agriulture. Prior to is 2009 appointment,Beay was founding president of te Donald DanfortSiene Plant center, wi is dediated to improving teuman ondition troug plant siene.

The opportunity to truly transorm a scientiicield occurs at best once a generation. Therecently deceased Norman Borlaug seized one

such opportunity. In a career spanning our decades,

but especially during the 1960s, Borlaug revolutionizedproduction o wheat, rice, and maize the staple cropsthat eed most o the world.

The Nobel Peace Prize was only one among the manyhonors bestowed on Borlaug or his contributions to theGreen Revolution. At his death in 2009, he was hailedby developing countries as one o Americas great heroesor his many contributions to global ood security. Thepresident and prime minister o India, to oer but oneexample, called Borlaugs lie and achievement testimony

The Borlaug Legacy: A New Paradigm for

Agricultural ResearchRoger Beachy

Dr. Norman Borlaug (standing, let) introduced planting techniques to increase yields and eed greater numbers o people . He talks with other

agricultural researchers in Mexico in 1983.

TedStreshinsky/CORBIS


21/44

eJournaluSa 19

to the ar-reaching contribution that one mans toweringintellect, persistence, and scientiic vision can make tohuman peace and progress. Today, Borlaugs insights

inorm an intense eort to harness the latest scientiicadvances to the oldest o goals: assuring adequate,nutritious ood or all the worlds citizens.

BORLAUGS WORk

Borlaugs early work in Mexico aimed to developand introduce disease-resistant wheat strains. It was sohampered by inadequate resources, poor equipment,and the lack o trained scientists that Borlaug thoughtseriously about leaving the project. His new idea toshuttle wheat seeds to new locations where altitude and

temperature dierences would allow a second growingseason ran aoul o conventional botanical wisdom.But he persevered. Risking his career and reputation, hepursued the new double season regimen. He held ast to atightly ocused agenda, developing new strains with highpotential or quick and tangible outcomes, scaled up hiswork to include many geographic areas and environments,and kept the end goal reducing hunger by improvingwheat yield ixed irmly in mind.

By 1963, 95 percent o Mexicos wheat harvestderived rom Borlaugs improved varieties and theharvest was six times higher than in 1944, when he irstbegan his work there. Mexico had not only becomesel-suicient in wheat production, it was a net wheatexporter.

Borlaugs success in boosting Mexican yields repeateditsel over six decades o incredible scientiic advances.These saved hundreds o millions throughout thedeveloping world rom starvation and malnutrition. Hiswork touched small- and large-scale armers alike. It ishard to imagine a staple crop anywhere in the world whereBorlaugs tools, techniques, or actual hands-on researchhave not led to substantial improvements in production,

nutritional quality, or resilience o crops to pests, disease,or adverse climatic conditions.Borlaugs sweeping transormation o global plant

cultivation is truly a legacy to admire. But or those o uswho manage scientiic endeavors, he let another enduringlegacy: He was not araid to take risks. He ocused onsolving large-scale problems with similarly large-scaleresearch, and he worked on projects where the payo inood security was tangible and immediate.

Borlaug proved that science and technology could

improve the well-being o people across the globe. In hislast years, he realized that uture challenges demandednew tools, new strategies, and new intellect i science is to

improve the human condition urther. In the agriculturecommunity, we can put this legacy, and this insight, intoaction.

ADApTING BORLAUGS LEGACYFORA NEW ERA

New challenges make it necessary that we againtransorm agriculture through science and newtechnologies. Our ood production systems ace manychallenges that threaten our ability to provide a sae,adequate, and nutritious ood supply. The U.N.sFood and Agriculture Organization predicts that ood

production must double by 2050 to meet global demand,even as it aces new threats. Our ood supply mustadequately address nutritional issues that range rom

The Agriculture Research Service o USDA is enhancing the

phytonutrient content and longevity o tomatoes with genetic

engineering techniques. This scientist is work ing at an agency laboratory

in Beltsville, Maryland.

CourtesyofScottBaue

r/USDA


22/44

eJournaluSa 20

obesity to malnutrition. Additionally, we need to developprocesses and technologies that protect our ood rommicrobial contamination.

Even as demand or ood grows, competition or theenergy needed to produce it increases. The InternationalEnergy Outlook 2009, published by the U.S. Departmento Energy, projects that total world consumption omarketed energy will increase by 44 percent rom 2006 to2030, most notably in China and India. New renewableenergy sources must enter the production chain i we areto assure adequate ood supply. Agriculture can play a key

role in developing those energy sources.Agricultural science must respond to these pressures,both to ensure the sustainability o the U.S. ood, uel,and iber system and to address some o the worlds mostintractable problems. In this spirit, Borlaug would havewelcomed the National Academy o Sciences new report,A New Biology for te 21st century, as the next greatstep in harnessing science to solve societal challenges. Itsrecommendations speak to values he held dear:

Taking bold, risk-taking approaches tounderstanding undamental questions in biology;

Tackling complex scientiic challenges with alaser-tight ocus on areas where the new biologycan oer the most promise o transormativebreakthroughs;

Scaling up research eorts across disciplinaryboundaries to match the complexity and magnitudeo 21st-century problems;

Ensuring that our progress in science is measuredby tangible impacts on human health, ood security,

and environmental stewardship.The New Biologyreport recognizes the magnitudeo these challenges and o the research eort required tomeet them. The report explains how uture advances willrely upon a more undamental understanding o plant lieitsel:

The long-term uture o agriculture dependson a deeper understanding o plant growth.Growth or development is the path romthe genetic instructions stored in the genome

The National Institute or Food and Agriculture conducts research to achieve national objectives, such as improving childhood nutrition. These New York

City students are eating in a school caeteria where they are ser ved nutritious, low at, and locally grown ood.

APImages/MaryAltaffer


23/44

eJournaluSa 21

to a ully ormed organism. Surprisingly little isnow known about this path in plants. A genomesequence provides both a list o parts and a

resource or plant breeding methods, but doesnot give the inormation needed to understandhow each gene contributes to the ormation andbehavior o individual plant cells, how the cellscollaborate and communicate to orm tissues(such as the vascular system, or the epidermis),and how the tissues unction together to orm theentire plant.The report recommends deploying new technologies

to help understand how plants grow and thrive, includingmodeling and simulation tools tovisualize growth and development

at the cellular and molecular levels.The goal, the report says, is a moreeicient approach to developing plantvarieties that can be grown sustainablyunder diverse local conditions.Developing these new tools will makepossible new methods and techniquesto address problems in health, energy,and environment as well as traditionalagriculture.

We take precisely this approach atthe U.S. Department o Agriculture.We are committed to combatingworld hunger by developing newcrop varieties that can grow andthrive under environmental stress.We will employ every means in thescience toolkit to this end; we cannotaord to ignore any scientiic ieldthat promises breakthroughs towardglobal ood security. We know thatthis research will yield collateralhealth, energy, and environmental beneits. The advances

will help American armers remain competitive in theglobal agricultural marketplace, even as we reduce the tollrom starvation and malnutrition in other countries.

Todays challenges require more than new ideas andnew tools. A new approach to how research is undedand managed, and its successes measured, is required. ForUSDA, that new approach is represented by the NationalInstitute o Food and Agriculture (NIFA), launched bySecretary o Agriculture Tom Vilsack in late 2009.

In setting up NIFA, USDA turned to colleagues in

other U.S. government scientiic agencies to identiy bestpractices or managing ederal grants. Among the lessonswe learned and will implement:

Greater transparency and accountability will inormour grantmaking.

We shall resolve many problems into a limited anddiscrete set o issues and tackle their root causes.

Instead o trying to grow as many narrow, single-issue or single-ocus research programs as we can,we shall identiy and recruit the best minds wherever they are and make sure we retain theirservices and reward their work.

Now is the time careully to assess and agree onbroad but discrete challenges. Byidentiying these skillully and

deploying resources eectively, wecan help solve large and previouslyintractable societal problems climate change, ood saety, childnutrition and obesity, ood securityat home and abroad, abundant andrenewable energy and hold thepromise o doing so while preservingand improving our environment andgenerating wealth in rural Americaand the world.

Norman Borlaug appliedagricultural science and technologyto the challenging issues o his day.NIFA aims to honor his legacy bysecuring equally transormativechange. Working with partners inthe United States and other nations,

we can build on recent scientiicdiscoveries incredible advancesin sequencing plant and animalgenomes, or example. We have new

and powerul tools biotechnology, nanotechnology, and

large-scale computer simulations applicable to all typeso agriculture. Agriculture is a science and must drawwidely rom many disciplines and many technologies,but our science portolio needs to be tightly ocusedto leverage other resource and to prioritize its eorts.With this approach, we can match Norman Borlaugsremarkable record o improving the health and well-beingo our global society. n

Scientists with the USDAs Agriculture Research

Service examine dierent samples o alala,

genetically engineered or improved characteristics

such as lea retention and disease resistance.

CourtesyofBruceFritz/U

SDA


24/44

eJournaluSa 22

M

eeting the worlds uture ood needs will testthe capacity and ingenuity o agricultureproducers everywhere. The problem is one not

merely o quantity, but o quality. More than 1 billionpeople lack adequate amounts o nutrient-rich oods suchas meat, eggs, milk, and vegetables, according to a 2009U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimate.

Hidden hunger is how the Micronutrient Initiative,one o the advocacy groups seeking solutions to theproblem, describes malnutrition. When hidden hungeris widespread, it can trap amilies, communities andwhole nations in cycles o ill health and poverty, theorganization explains on its Web site.

Childhood deiciencies o key vitamins and nutrientsthat support proper growth can saddle youngsters withlietime disabilities.

Supplying all the worlds people today and in theuture with abundant nutrient-rich oods is the mostdesirable, but the most diicult, solution. Other answersare to distribute nutrient supplements vitamin pills to populations, or to provide ortiied oodstuslike iodized salt and milk with added Vitamin D andcalcium. These solutions received support in a United

Call or Action rom a coalition o many o the worldsmajor aid agencies in 2009, including the U.S. Agencyor International Development and the U.N. ChildrensFund.

Still another answer to malnutrition is bioortiication creating new versions o staple ood crops that comeout o the ground with higher nutrient content.

HarvestPlus, one international agricultural researchproject, is pursuing this solution with eorts to boost thenutrient content o seven key staple crops grown in Asiaand Arica. These crops are beans, cassava, maize, pearlmillet, rice, sweet potato, and wheat.

Sometime later this year, HarvestPlus aims to get theirst bioortiied crop into the ground. A strain o beanswith a higher than average iron content has been bred orcultivation in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic oCongo where up to 50 percent o children can suer roman iron-deicient diet.

By 2011-2012, HarvestPlus aims to develop astrain o cassava that will triple the Vitamin A contento the starchy staple crop and provide about hal o therecommended amount o the vitamin necessary or propervision. Though still in development, the bioortiied

cassava is set to be in the ields o Nigeria and theDemocratic Republic o Congo by 2011-2012. n

Feeding the Hidden Hunger

In a HarvestPlus pilot project, Ugandan women grow a sweet potato

variety that is higher in Vitamin A content than the strains widley grown at

present. The incresed vitamin content o this ood staple can help protect

the population rom inection and blindness.

CourtesyofAn

naMarieBall/HarvestPlus


25/44

eJournaluSa 23

As nations unt for ways to fulfill teir populations foodneeds in te future, te need to identify leaner energy souresis also urgent. In te future, agriulture will likely meetsome portion of energy prodution, and various nations arepursuing tis potential today.

Elisa Wood speializes in energy issues and er work isavailable atwww.RealEnergyWriters.com.

O

ne partial solution to our energy problems liesnot in the oilield but in the cornield, as nationsincreasingly replace some petroleum needs with

bioenergy uel made rom plants. Energy armingincreases demand and opens vast new markets or crops:or sugarcane in Brazil, or corn and soybeans in theUnited States, and or other grasses, seeds, and trees inother nations.

CROp-BASED FUELSINThE UNITED STATES

Many nations already use bioenergy to run cars andtrucks, oten in a mix with gasoline or diesel uel. The two

major orms o crop-based uel used in the United Statesare ethanol rom corn and biodiesel rom soybeans.

The market or these uels is expected to grow. AsU.S. liquid uel needs expand over the next 25 years,bioenergy will help ill the gap, according to the U.S.Energy Inormation Administration. Europe, Asia, andCentral and South America also rely increasingly on thisresource.

Bioenergy holds special appeal because it is renewable simply by growing agricultural crops. We cannot

replenish petroleum, todays leading source o mosttransportation uel. Economists say that as petroleumsupplies diminish, we can expect prices will rise. Expertspredict that bioenergy will serve as a 21st-century answer.

Biouels play a very, very major role in displacingpetroleum-based uels, says John Urbanchuk, a bioenergyspecialist with LEGC Consulting, an expert servicesconsulting irm with oices worldwide. Indeed, i theUnited States replaced just 5 percent o todays diesel withrenewable uels, it could displace as much crude oil as itnow imports rom Iraq or diesel production, according tothe National Biodiesel Board, which Urbanchuk advises.

And there are other beneits as well, Urbanchukadds. Biouels provide market-based revenue or armers,which is very important. I you can provide a market-based return that reduces the amount o governmentsupport that is provided to agriculture, that money can beused elsewhere.

Corn armers, in particular, are reaping beneitsrom the bioenergy boom, because o a U.S. policy toincrease the amount o ethanol in the gasoline mix. Thenation added more than 34 billion kiloliters o ethanolto gasoline in 2008, using 3.2 billion bushels o corn.

A ederal mandate will quadruple ethanol productionby 2022. As manuacturers expand, they will need morecorn. By 2018 ethanol production will likely accountor 35 percent o U.S. corn use, according to the U.S.Department o Agriculture.

Corn makes sense as an energy crop in the UnitedStates because we grow corn, process corn better thananything else we do, says Urbanchuk. Corn is the nationsmost widely produced eed grain, and the United Stateskeeps inding more eicient ways to grow it. Last year

Crops Will Provide 21st-Century Energy

Elisa Wood

In Brazil, sugar-cane waste is used to produce ethanol, which is mixed with

gasoline in a mandated ormula or automobile uel.

APImages/AndrePenner


26/44

the United States produced 13.2 billion bushels, a recordcrop, on 5 million ewer acres (2.02 million hectares) thanthe previous year.

Soybeans, the main crop or biodiesel, also are grownaplenty in the United States. The nation is the worldslargest producer and exporter o soybeans, with almost400,000 armers in 29 states growing them. U.S. sales obiodiesel uels, blended or used in pure orm, totaled 1.7million kiloliters or 2009. As one bushel o soybeans canproduce 1.4 gallons (5.3 liters) o soy-based biodiesel,armers supplied nearly 328 million bushels o soybeans torenewable biodiesel in 2009 alone.

INTERNATIONALBIOENERGYDRIvE

Biouels and wind are expected to be the astest

growing renewable energy resources in the 30 countriesmaking up the Organization or Economic Cooperationand Development. Estimates are that India will expand

biouel use 15 percent over the next two decades, andChina 10 percent. Biouel industry growth also is underway in various South American countries.

But the United States and Brazil are the leaders, andare expected to remain so. The two countries produce 70percent o the worlds bioenergy. While the United Statesproduces more ethanol, Brazil is oten described as theirst biouel economy. Backed by substantial governmentinvestment, Brazil or three decades has been perectingproduction o ethanol rom sugar cane. No cars in Brazilrun on pure gasoline anymore. The government requiresthat all vehicles run on blended uel o about one-quarter

ethanol. Brazil produced about 25,000 kiloliters o ethanol

Bioenergy is energy derived rom recently livingorganisms.

Bioenergy does not contribute to climate changebecause the carbon dioxide (CO2 ) it produces is derivedrom carbon that existed in the atmosphere in the ormo another recently living thing. Fossil uels, on the otherhand, release into the atmosphere greenhouse gases thatwere previously encased within the earth.

Biomass is the total mass o living matter withina given habitat, including commonly used uels suchas wood, but also a lot o items usually thought o aswaste: agricultural waste, dung, municipal solid waste,industrial waste, and some crops that may be cultivatedexpressly or their use as uels. Another attractive eatureo biomass: Its just about everywhere, not concentrated

in a ew countries.Biomass is easy to grow, collect, use, and replacewithout depleting natural resources, so bioenergy is notonly renewable, but also sustainable.

Ethanol, or ethyl alcohol as used in drinks and medicine, is currently the most widely used biouel in the UnitedStates. About one-third o the U.S. corn crop is directed into ethanol production. This has led to a threeold increase inthe amount o ethanol produced annually in the United States since 2003. About 34 billion kiloliters o ethanol wereproduced in the United States in 2009.

The U.S. Department o Energy supports research into new and cost-eective methods o developing liquidtransportation uels rom abundant biomass sources such as crop and orestry residues. n

Bioenergy: Available, Renewable, Sustainable

eJournaluSa 24

Tanks lled with ethanol made rom the adjacent elds o sugar-cane are seen

in this view o Brazils biouel enterprise.

APImages/VictorR.Caivano


27/44

25

in 2008, and exported about 15 percent. Whether Brazilssuccess can be replicated remains a source o debate, giventhat ew parts o the world have a climate and land massso well suited or cultivating sugar cane.

In developing nations, biouels already are commonlyused, but as sources o domestic heating and cooking.Markets or biouel crops have not developed, so theyare not a source o revenue. That could change, however,given that several developing nations oer vast untappedbioenergy potential, according to a study, certifiationStrategies, Industrial Development and a Global Market forBiofuels, by the Beler Center or Science and InternationalAairs at Harvard Universitys Kennedy School.

While bioenergy could provide poor rural areaswith a oundation or new agricultural industries,

real challenges remain. Stable government is requiredto attract the investors and the capital to build thenecessary inrastructure. Biouel production requiresreineries to make the uel, cars that can use the uel, andtransportation acilities to bring the uel to market.

Further, while ethanol is a cost competitive uel, atabout $60/barrel, the export market or biouels is beingshaped haphazardly by a series o dierent and sometimesconlicting government policy goals, the Beler Centerreport says. For example, when developed countries

restrict imports to protect their ownarmers proits, they make it morediicult or newcomers to enter themarket. Still the study sees potential or

production and export o sugar-caneethanol in Suriname, Guyana, Bolivia,Paraguay, the Democratic Republic oCongo, and Cameroon.

Most important, a nation mustachieve ood security beore it channelsagriculture resources into energy, saysthe report. Indeed, even in the UnitedStates, worries exist about the impact obiouels on the ood supply. During theood price hikes o 2007-2008, biouelswere named as a major culprit by groups

such as the Earth Policy Institute. Theuse o corn or uel increased demandor the crop, the Institute asserted,driving up prices or ood uses as well.In retrospect, the U.S. CongressionalBudget Oice concluded that thediversion o corn to ethanol productioneected ood prices only minimally,

accounting or between 0.5 and 0.8 percentage pointso the 5.1 percent increase in the price o ood. Otheractors, such as skyrocketed energy costs, played a largerrole in the ood price spike, according to that oice. Butit is important or bioenergy advocates to address theperception that biouels mean higher ood costs. Manypoint out that not all o the grass or bean goes towarduel. Meal and other byproducts are extracted or livestockeed and other purposes.

WhATSNExT?

While corn and soybean demand is expected toremain solid, other crops now in various stages odevelopment will compete or use in biouel production.

For example, researchers at the University o IdahosCollege o Agriculture and Lie Sciences see strongpossibilities or mustard seed, canola, and rapeseed.Mustard seed can serve a dual purpose: the oils can bemade into biodiesel, and the pungent meal into a pesticidespread on armland, says Jack Brown, proessor oBreeding and Genetics at the University o Idaho.

Biouels are not expected to displace petroleumentirely. But even i they only reduce petroleum use bya small amount, analysts expect their presence to put

A Japan Airlines 747-300 takes on biouel and traditional jet uel in a 50-50 blend at Haneda

Airport in Tokyo in 2009. JAL is one o several airlines that have tested biouels in fight, but these

alternatives have not been introduced widely in the industry.

epa/Kimimasa

Mayama/CORBIS


28/44

downward pressure on prices. In the case o biodiesel,Brown urges the arm industry to replace all o itspetroleum uel needs with biodiesel products. Tractors and

trucks should be run on arm-grown uels, he says, notonly to support the industry, but also to protect armlandrom pollutants emitted by petroleum. This would havea small but signiicant impact on petroleum use agriculture makes up just over 1 percent o U.S. grossnational product. Even i biodiesel became everythingwe want it to be, it would still produce only [a] small

quantity o the uel we need in this country. That is whybiodiesel should not be used by Mrs. McGuinty to takeher kids to school or by a ritzy Caliornia star. It should be

used in environmentally sensitive areas, Brown says.Work also is underway to make biouels rom more

exotic raw materials: algae, castor oil, coee grinds,microbes, eather meal, salmon oil, tobacco, and othervarious grasses, seeds and trees. Hollywood stars publicizetheir use o biouels made rom restaurant greases letover rom ast ood rying. Such substances, though, have

rawmaTerialsOf biOfuels

FirStGeneration

(technoloGieSFullycommercialized)

Raw Material Use

Corn, sugar cane, molasses, and sorghum Ethanol

Soybeans and other vegetable oils, recycledgrease, bee tallow Biodiesel

SecondGeneration

(emerGinGtechnoloGieS)

Raw Material Use

Agricultural residue, including corn stover, wheat and Methane, cellulosic ethanol, power plantrice straw, manure, and bagasse (residue rom sugarcaneand sorghum stalks)

Forest biomass, including logging residues, wood Cellulosic ethanol and power plant

Urban woody waste and landills Methane, cellulosic ethanol, power

Herbaceous plants, including switchgrass, miscanthus, reed Cellulosic ethanol, power plantcanary grass, sweet sorghum, alala

Short rotation woody crops, including willow, hybrid poplar, Cellulosic ethanol, power plantcottonwood pines, sycamore pines, eucalyptus

Information derived fromThe Economics o Biomass Feedstocks in the United States: A Review o the Literature, by te Biomass Resear andDevelopment Board

eJournaluSa 26


29/44

eJournaluSa 27

limited range because o their tendency to reeze, and canonly be made available in small quantities.

Meanwhile, the aviation industry is moving into

biouels. Boeing, the Mexican Airports and AuxiliaryServices Agency, and Honeywell have teamed up to indways o using Mexican crops or biouel. In the UnitedStates, the shipping company Fedex has pledged thata third o its uel will come rom bioenergy by 2030.Bioenergy also is being used in power production, mostlyat small generating plants. One area o promise is theco-iring o bioenergy and coal. The power plant uses coalpart o the time, keeping costs low, and bioenergy theremainder to improve the power plants environmentalproile.

Worldwide demand or biouel is projected to grow

8.6 percent annually through 2030. Achieving thisdepends on government support since biouels, like most

renewable energy sources, still rely on inancial incentives.In the United States, or example, a ederal standardmandates an increase in the biouel mix in gasoline to

almost 145 million kiloliters by 2022. In addition, theObama administration has committed $80 million toadvanced biouels research.

Given this kind o support, coupled with the push oroil alternatives, bioenergy injects new vigor and livelihoodto the very old business o arming. The agriculturalindustry, already responsible or products that createood, clothing, and material or shelter, is now irmly inthe business o providing another necessity: the energy tomake it all work. n

The opinions expressed in this interview do not necessarily refect the views orpolicies o the U.S. government.


30/44

eJournaluSa 28


31/44

eJournaluSa 29

Twenty-first-entury agriulture is likely to build strongerlinks between farmers in rural areas and ity dwellers in orderto reate market systems wit greater effiieny and bettertenologies.

c. Peter Timmer is a leading eonomist in te fields

of agriultural and development eonomis. he as eldprofessorsips at Stanford, cornell, and te University ofcalifornia, San Diego. he is urrently te Tomas D.cabot Professor of Development Studies, emeritus, harvardUniversity.

The increasing globalization o agriculture and theresulting dominant role o supermarkets beneitmany but harm others. Those who inluence the

21st-century global marketplace should seek to allocateits burdens equitably, while preserving the real gainsthat aord millions a greater variety o healthul, moreaordable sustenance.

By its very nature, agriculture is mostly a local

activity, its roots in the soil. Most o the worlds billionor more armers live within walking distance o the cropsthey grow and eat. The co-evolution o human societiesand cultivated species has led to superb adaptation tospeciic environments, and has created highly diversiiedcropping systems that can meet the wide nutritional needso household members. Localized agriculture is still thenorm or the vast majority o the worlds poor people.

Economists have long viewed this dependence as acause o poverty, not a historical accident. Agriculture

Agriculture in the Global Marketplace

C. Peter Timmer

A shopper chooses rom a selection o impor ted oods at a Shanghai supermarket. Food imports to China are increasing, like many products

rom abroad.

APImages/Fengleish/Imaginechina


32/44

eJournaluSa 30

limited to indigenous crops, locally available soil nutrients,and household labor, they argue, is a recipe or povertyand malnutrition. Local ood sel-suiciency, they

conclude, impoverishes individual households and theoverall economy. Two Nobel Prizes in Economics wereawarded in 1979 or these insights: to T.W. Schultz oremphasizing the need or new technologies to overcomerural household poverty, and to W. Arthur Lewis, or hisemphasis on the role o agricultural modernization as acrucial input to overall economic development.

GLOBALIZED MARkETS

Market interactions between arm and urbanhouseholds are the key to solving both problems.

However, markets bring not just access to bettertechnology and greater eiciency, they also bring new risks that price luctuations may oset armers hard workand leave them in debt. At the same time, dynamic urbaneconomies oer armers, and especially their children,the chance or a new lie in the city. Expand markets to aglobal scale, and the opportunities, choices, and risks atthe arm and national levels all multiply.

The globalization o markets is not new. Those ous who live in the United States have relied on globalmarkets or centuries they supply our coee, tea, andspices, or example, and buy our surplus grain, tobacco,

and vegetable oils. Other parts o the world have beenconnected similarly since the beginning o moderneconomic growth. Wheat prices in 18th-century England

were tied directly to prices in the Baltic ports; rice pricesin Calcutta and Bombay, even Paris, were linked toprices in Rangoon and Saigon. Long-distance trade inagricultural commodities beneits people on both ends othe transaction.

Still, the modern round o globalization is broaderand deeper than anything seen in the 18th or 19thcenturies. Three revolutions have stimulated the rapidintegration o commodity markets:

The revolution in agricultural technologies thatpermits highly productive but specialized armingtechniques;

The revolution in communications andtransportation that permits buyers and sellersto connect quickly and at low cost across vastdistances;

The revolution in global living standards that hasbrought billions o new consumers into a world odiscretionary purchases.

Modern globalization is the result o progress insupply, marketing, and demand.

Driven by these orces, agricultural globalizationshapes the diet o consumers and the practices o armproducers. The ormer beneit rom the ready and

aordable availability o more diversiiedoodstus, a cornucopia ar beyondwhat domestic agricultural productioncan provide. European consumers havedaily access to resh green beans romKenya; American consumers enjoy reshPeruvian asparagus in February. Low-costtransportation systems and alling tradebarriers oer many consumers a marketbasket that draws rom the entire worldsbounty and diversity.

At the same time, globalizationcan incentivize individual amers tospecialize in a single crop even as nationalagricultural sectors on balance may growmore diversiied. Unless agro-ecologicalconditions are nearly identical throughouta country, armers will or reasons oresources, soil quality, or a number o otheractors develop a competitive advantagein growing a particular kind o crop. They

Saudi armers sell dates at a market on the outskirts o Riyadh. Saudi Arabia is the worlds

third largest producer o dates, ater Egypt and Iran, according to the U.N. Food and

Agriculture Organization.

APImages/HasanJamali


33/44

eJournaluSa 31

utilize their arm resources most eiciently by specializingin growing that crop. This narrow specialization isconsistent with greater diversity at the national levelbecause o the commercialization o agriculture andinternational trade in ood commodities.

ThE ROLEOF SUpERMARkETS

Modern supermarkets aord consumers the bounty oan international marketplace. By ocusing the purchasingpower o billions o consumers, they can oer a widevariety o appealing oods at low prices. But supermarketsalso ampliy the globalization-driven pressure upon the

arm sector to adopt eicient supply-chain managementpractices. The impact on the structure o arm production,on who participates in the marketing process, and onthe nature and cost o products available to consumers isproound.

Supermarkets and the transnational corporations(TNCs) that commonly own them also ace iercecompetition. TNCs such as Wal-Mart in the UnitedStates, Tesco in the United Kingdom, Carreour in France,and Ahold in the Netherlands try to escape the resulting

squeeze on proits by applyingnew inormation technologiesto lower supply-chain costs

and by leeing the homemarket and moving intocountries where ood retailingremains comparativelyineicient and proit marginshigh. Most transnationalcorporations engaged in oodmarketing have done both.

TNC-ownedsupermarkets increasinglydominate the global oodsupply chain. Backed by

oreign direct investment,TNCs consolidate the oodretailing industry in manycountries and, some allege,extract high, even monopolyproits. But what does thismean or consumers? Theanswer is complicated.

Technology that lowerstransaction costs throughout

the ood supply chain can enhance supermarket proitseven as customers reap the beneit o lower prices.Increasingly, inormation technology aords supermarketmanagers exquisite control over procurement, inventorylevels, and knowledge o consumer checkout proiles. Thistranslates into powerul competitive advantages in costcontrol, quality maintenance, and product tracking in caseo deects or saety problems.

Globalized agriculture aords a number o otherbeneits. I Florida, or instance, experiences a killingrost, American consumers do not lack or orange juice;Brazilian and other substitutes are readily available in theUnited States, and vice versa. Global production boosts

global ood security, and aords a partial insurance policyagainst the impact o climate change on crop production.But as the cost o inormation technology drops,

determining the beneiciaries becomes less clear. As morecompetitors adopt the latest technology, competitionamong ood retailers intensiies. The resulting low pricesbeneit consumers. The TNCs in turn require ever-greatereiciency rom their suppliers. The constant pressure tolower costs in the ood aisle ultimately is transerred all theway back to the individual armer.

This armers market in San Francisco gives local growers an outlet to sell their produce directly to consumers in

competition with supermarkets.

APImages/EricRisberg


34/44

CONCERNSABOUT EqUITY

The increasing dominance o supermarkets generates

real concerns about airness and equity in the agriculturalmarketing system. As many transactions shit romopen and transparent public markets to supermarketprocurement oicers representing a ew large buyers, oodproducers are more easily excluded rom the negotiations.Prices are squeezed ever lower. Farmers adapt, or they arepushed out o arming.

But there is another side to this story. In acompetitive environment, supermarkets must respond tocustomer preerence. Some consumers care deeply aboutthe environment. Others willingly pay somewhat higherprices to better sustain local armers. TNCs manage some

procurement contracts with these concerns in mind. Fearsthat a given TNC will establish monopoly control andmarket power in the developing world appear overstated:The success o one supermarket chain attracts others.The TNCs compete, iercely, among themselves. Themarket or the ood consumers dollar seems to be highlycontestable, even when only a small handul o retailerssurvive the cost competition.

Unquestionably, the growth o the TNC-ownedsupermarket poses risks to small armers. Because o the

high transactions costs, working with large numberso small armers is more expensive than doing businesswith a ew large suppliers. Small amers easily can lose

access to supermarket supply chains, and all urther intopoverty. But with risk oten comes opportunity. Somesmall armers have gained proitable access to modernsupply chains. Small armers in Central Java, Indonesia,now sell their specialized black watermelons not just tolocal consumers, but to consumers in Jakarta, Singaporeand Kuala Lumpur as well. Poor countries that successullyintegrate some small armers into the supermarket supplychain will beneit greatly.

Globalized ood supply chains are a two-edged sword.They aord consumers lower prices and greater oodsecurity. But countries can lose control o their own ood

production and trade, as oreign consumers and producersdrive local prices. A new international trade regime mustbalance equitably these positives and negatives, especiallyso that the poorest countries the least ood secure do not suer. n

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily refect the views orpolicies o the U.S. government.

TOp crOp prOducers

The nations that lead the world in producing various crops o interest are noted below, according tothe latest data available rom the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization rom the 2007 harvest.

China Rice 187 million metric tons

China Wheat 109 million metric tons

United States Maize 330 million metric tons

France Barley 9.5 million metric tons

Nigeria Cassava 43 million metric tons

Brazil Sugar Cane 550 million metric tons

Nation Crop Yield

eJournaluSa 32


35/44

eJournaluSa 33

About 6,000 years ago, according to archeologicalevidence, prehistoric armers in the Americas cross-bred

corn plants to create a crop with desirable traits that

originally occurred in only a ew plants. Centuries later,

a 19th-century Austrian priest, Gregor Johann Mendel,

experimented with tens o thousands o pea plants

and identiied the laws o cross breeding plants. The

signiicance o his work was only properly recognized in

the early 20th century when Mendels Laws o Inheritance

became a touchstone or the new science o genetics.

Today, most o the worlds major ood crops are

grown rom hybrid strains. Genetic science has advanced

with the emergence o biotechnology and the creation o

genetically modiied organisms (GMOs). Though these

technologies have been controversial, and adamantly

opposed by some, many respected scientists assert that

developing plants genetically capable o producing greater

yields with less ertilizer and water is necessary to meet the

ood needs o the uture.Regardless o how the controversy over genetic

engineering is resolved, there is no question that humans

have a long history in the manipulation o plant species,

resulting in greater abundance and variety in the modern

diet. n

Nature + Science = New Crops

All o the ood types included in this edible still lie havebeen produced through genetic engineering, the process

o inserting genes rom one organism into another, giving

the second plant a desirable quality o the rst. The U.S.

Department o Agriculture (USDA) reports the process is

being used or tested on an increasing array o crops.

CourtesyofStephenAusmus/USDA

Pearl millet is a staple crop or people in the semi-arid

tropics. The plants in this eld in southern India have been

genetically engineered to resist diseases that can kill an entire

crop.

AP Images/Desikan Krishnan


36/44

eJournaluSa 34

The Galaxy peach, also known as the Bagel peach or its fat shape,

is a var iety developed over 10 years o testing by the U.S. Agricul-

ture Research Service. The sweet taste o the ruit and abundant

yield o the tree have made it popular or backyard gardeners.

A ruit grower in Virginia checks the blos-

soms o a pluot tree or rost damage ater

a late season reeze. The pluot is a ruit

created through cross-breeding plums and

apricots in a three-to-one ratio. The aprium

is a genetically engineered ruit, also made

through a mix o genetic material rom

plums and apricots, in a one-to-three ratio,

creating a ruit that is subtly dierent in

appearance and taste.

Courtesy o USDA

This test eld in Chinas Yunnan province is sown with

dierent varieties o rice to determine which strain

adapts most readily to environmental conditions

particular to that region. Planting a strain that is well

adapted, and thus more productive, can result in an

improved yield, which makes a substantial dierence in

a armers livelihood.

AP Images/Andy Wong

Nectarines roll down a packing line in a Caliornia plant. The nectarine is a natural

mutant o the peach with the dierence o only a single gene that results in a smooth

skin. The peach is thought to have originated in China, but traders introduced it to the

West perhaps as long as 2,000 years ago.

APImages/GaryKazanjian

APIm

ages/TheWinchesterStar/ScottMason

Nature + Science


37/44

eJournaluSa 35

The Bribi Indians o Costa Rica have

adopted new agricultural methods

and varieties o disease resistant crops

developed by researchers at the University

o Costa Rica.

Plant physiologist Athanasios Theologis

isolated and cloned the tomatos ripening

gene. By manipulating this gene, Theologis

and others created the Endless Summer

tomato, a variety that can be let on the

vine long enough to develop ull tasteand texture while still remaining ripe

when it arrives at the supermarket.

Rice sellers at a market in Kindia, Guinea, are selling Nerica, new

rice or Arica. Researchers created the variety by crossbreeding

an Arican rice variety with another variety that resulted in a more

productive strain. The plant provides growers with greater yields to

sell and thus increases their incomes.

APImages/KentGilbert

CourtesyofJackDykinga/USDA

APImages/BorisHeger

Nature + Science


38/44

Centuries o experience and technological developmentseparate todays armer rom the irst people who scrapeda crop rom the ground thousands o years ago, but onething these armers still share the need or water.Agriculture consumes about 90 percent o the planetsresh water, surpassing industrial and domestic uses by ar.

Reliable water supplies will be a critical actor inincreasing agricultural production to meet the needs othe worlds expanding population. The challenge will beto extract greater eiciency rom every drop. Irrigatedland in developing countries will increase by 34 percentby 2030, according to a U.N. Food and AgricultureOrganization estimate, but the amount o water usedto produce ood crops will increase by only 14 percentbecause o improved irrigation practices.

So how much water does it take to grow ood?Obviously dierent crops have widely diverse needs,but generally, between 2,000 to 5,000 liters o waterare required to grow the ood that an average personconsumes per day.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency oersthese estimates o the water needed to prod

Documents

Food Report US StateDept