The authors argue that a stronger

scientific base is needed for

agriculture in low-latitude areas of

the world. Northern agricultural

methods are not adequate in

warmer climates and research is

needed to find appropriate farming

techniques and tools. At the same

time, redistribution of land and

water supplies (and a political

structure to prevent their being

consolidated again in the hands of

a few) are necessary so that the

increased production goes to those

who need it.

The authors are members of a group

studying alternatives for the future at

the Science Policy Research Unit,

University of Sussex, Falmer,

Brighton, BNl 9RF. UK.

’ P. Buringh, H.J.D. van Heemst and G.J.

Staring, Computation of the Absolute Maximum Food Production of the World, Agricultural University, Wageningen, 1975: and C. Clark, Population Growth and Land Use, St Martin’s Press, New York, 1967. 2 H. Rush, P. Marstrand and J. Gribbin, ‘World food futures - growth with redistribution?‘, Food Policy, Vol 3, NO 2. 1978, pp 1 14-l 26. 3P. Marstrand and H. Rush, ‘Food and agriculture: the world food paradox’, Chapter 4 in C. Freeman and M. Jahoda,

continuedonpage 273

Knowledge intensive

agriculture

The need for science in labour intensive agriculture

Pauline Marstrand, John Gribbin and Howard Rush

We live in a world which could provide adequate food for at least twice its present population,’ but in which some 70 million people are close to death by starvation, and many more suffer from a diet deficient in one or more essential ingredients. We have argued elsewhere* that the cause of this inequality is poverty, a poverty perpetuated in many parts of the world by exisiting social and economic structures. Our aim in this article is to discuss policies which could enable the poor to break out of this poverty trap, and by their own correctly applied efforts, to remove the spectre of starvation from its present prominence over much of the world. For reasons outlined below, we believe that the world food ‘problem’ is essentially one of poverty - inability to buy food - rather than one of technology -inability to grow food.

Inability to grow food is not necessarily linked to poverty alone. There are ways of increasing productivity in regions where people do not at present eat enough, without using inputs that require money. Many of them depend on applying knowledge of how soil fertility is maintained even under continuous cropping; and when a little money is available it would often be better used in further improving yields along these lines than in providing, say, aid in the form of purchased food.

The food produced now is sufficient to feed about 5500 million people, roughly 1.25 times the present estimated world population.3 If the standards of current best farming practice could be achieved on only 60% of available cultivable land, 30 times the present population could be fed.4 Such an increase in productivity could be achieved initially without intensive mechanization, but by labour intensive methods, correctly applying relevant scientific knowledge of soil fertility. These methods are the equivalent, for lower latitude soils and climates, of the methods which brought about dramatic increases in agricultural productivity in Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries.5

272 0306-9 192/78/040272-08 $02.00 0 1978 IPC Business Press

continued from page 2 72

eds, World Futures: The Great Debate, Martin Robertson, London, 1978. ’ Buringh et a/, op cit. Ref 1. 5 P. Buringh and H.J.D. van Heemst, An Estimation of World Food Production Based on Labour-oriented Agriculture, Centre for World Food Market Research, Wageningen, Netherlands, 1977. This report cites the earlier work of S. van Bath (De Agarische Geschiedensis van West Europa, Aula 32, Utrecht, 1960) in support of this contention. 6 K. Griffin, ‘Increasing poverty and changing ideas about development strategies’, Development and Change, Vol 8, No 4. 1977, p 49 1. ’ Ibid.

Distributing the benefits Knowledge intensive agriculture

However, dramatic increases in production have occurred in the past without more food becoming available to the poorest people, except where deliberate policies of redistribution have been applied by governments. It is clearly not enough to have either the potential for increased production, or even the increased production itself, unless society is structured to ensure the provision of available food to those who need it. Now the problem becomes one of ensuring that the poor receive the economic benefits of growth quickly enough to alleviate their present, often desperate situation. As Griffin6 has shown, there is no historical precedent for the belief that undirected growth can provide a way out of the poverty trap:

In the Third World as a whole the rate of growth in the last quarter century or so has been unprecedented. Never before have so many poor countries, containing such a large proportion of those who are inadequately fed, clothed and housed, enjoyed such a period of rapid and sustained expansion of output. Yet despite this growth of production the problems of widespread poverty seem to have remained as great as ever. The rise in aggregateproduction does not seem to have been matched by a corresponding rise in the income of thepoor’ (our italics).

Looking specifically at agricultural changes over this 25 year period, one can see that new technologies - hybrid seeds, machinery and so on - have been more easily accessible to the relatively affluent farmer, who therefore gains an extra advantage over those unable to purchase the benefits of technological growth. Undirected growth can actually have an overall deleterious effect on the poorest; the status quo is often not even maintained. But the agricultural sector of the economy should not be looked at in isolation. The structures which produce a situation in which growth results in ‘the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer’ run across society, and applications of technology and scientific methods which improve any conditions of the poor will require changes across society as a whole.

It would be unrealistic to expect such changes to occur solely through moral concern for the welfare of the poor or through altruism. Indeed, there is evidence that the kind of ‘do-good’ food aid provided to regions of famine in the past can be detrimental in the long term. There are, however, sound reasons why in their own self- interest, governments and industrial pressure groups in poorer countries might encourage the agricultural reforms which benefit their poorest citizens. If the poor benefit from increasing productivity they are encouraged to make further efforts to increase that productivity, thus providing a stimulus for the economy with benefits for all. Undernourished people are unable to perform at top capacity, either physically or mentally, and contribute to the developing economy of a poor country. This is simply a waste of valuable resources, something which can be understood even by those who do not find it morally objectionable that people should starve in the presence of food. What, then, is the appropriate application of science and technology to increase agricultural production (the essential basis for a more equitable distribution of the fruits of that production)? It is remarkable that even in the last quarter of the 20th century, the kind of scientific investigation of basic agricultural techniques which revolutionized production in Europe in the early 19th century has yet to be carried out for most lower latitude areas and agricultural systems. This is quite a different prospect from the large scale

FOOD POLICY November 1978 273

8 The principles of high latitude agriculture are spelled out in many books such as V.R. Williams, Principles of

Agriculture, Hutchinson, London, 1948. Equivalent texts dealing with low-latitude agriculture are conspicuous by their absence. ’ For a discussion of the relationship between innovation and development in determining the direction of future growth in the world, and especially in relation to the problems of finding a path to a less inegalitarian future, see World Futures, op tit, Ref 3, Chapter 7. ‘O As Cohn Tudge points out in The famine Businebs. Faber and Faber, London 1977, p 22, a self-reliant nation is one whose agricultural policy is designed to meet the nutritional requirements of the population while at the same time leaving open the option of providing a more varied diet through trade. This is contrasted with an agricultural policy which requires a nation to grow all it will eat. ” See UNESCO, Source Books for Science Teachers. issued in the 1950s and including suggestions for improvising apparatus using items and materials available in developing countries. ‘2 K. Griffin, The Political Economy of Aorarian Chanae, Macmillan. London, 1974; K. Griffin. Land Concentration and Rural Povertv. Macmillan, London, 1975: and K. Griffin, ‘Increasing poverty and changing ideas about development strategies’, op tit, Ref 6.

application, envisaged by some, of high latitude methods, fertilizers and so on over a wide area of the globe, and it requires an investment of skill and method as a prerequisite to investment in machinery.*

Local talent

The eventual investment in machinery, however, also needs to be tailored to the appropriate needs of particular regions and countries. Traditional methods may no longer be the best when it is of prime importance to increase yields, and those methods should be changed and improved in the light of scientific knowledge, but not by importing ‘Western’ methods developed to meet different problems in different parts of the world. If the poorest people and poorest nations are ever to fulfill basic needs, it is essential to make the best use of available talent in the developing countries. Where innovation is required, it should be the result of the intellectual efforts of those who will be working with the new methods or technology; where new machinery is required, it should be designed where possible by those who will be using it, literally, ‘in the field’. Where possible the machinery should be constructed locally, providing employment and further boosting the economy of the developing country.9 Inputs of knowledge could be as important to Third World agriculture as inputs of machinery, but that knowledge should be in the form of the basic scientific app, ich from which local people can determine how best to meet local needs.

This emphasis on a ‘self-reliant’ approach is, we should stress, not the same thing as the often promoted concept of ‘self-sufficiency’.‘* Once people have enough to eat, they have enough physical and mental energy to do more than just raise food, so that the establishment of other industries and production of goods both for internal consumption and for trade becomes important.

Even if successful policies did provide equitable distribution of the food produced by more efficient agriculture, however, the widespread changes in the economy that could result from the presence of an adequately fed working population would provide the opportunity for new inequalities to emerge, unless new policies were introduced to prevent this happening. Policies to ensure that the relative - even absolute - position of the poorest in society does not worsen might be imposed from outside, by conquest, economic influence or propaganda; or they could be engendered from within. For the latter to occur the people, including the poorest people, need information about what could be produced and how, and about how to obtain advice and equipment. The kind of education envisaged by UNESCO in the 1950~‘~ needs to be extended and applied, involving increasing numbers of people at all levels, if this ideal is to become reality. Ultimately, though, as has been well documented by Griffin,12 the needs of the poorest people can only be met when the basis of wealth is redistributed. In most developing countries this means distribution of land and water. Usually, there could never be enough land in such a country for every family to have a viable plot, but rights in the land and other resources can be distributed, or land can be communally owned. At present, land is usually concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of families or firms. Somehow they will have to be persuaded to part with it, or be dispossessed.

274 FOOD POLICY November 1978

l3 Once again, we stress that ‘self- reliance’ does not imply ‘self-sufficiency’. As Colin Tudge has pointed out in The Famine Business, op cit. Ref 10, p 23, the argument that Britain for example, would be richer if the food import bill of f3600 million per year were cut, fails to take full account of the complexities of world trade. If food imports - primarily from the US - were cut significantly, this would hardly encourage British goods to be welcomed in the countries adversely affected. With the present world system, policies that are seen to be ‘good’ are those which reduce costs: it is precisely because agricultural self-sufficiency has not been the cheapest option historically that Britain has not taken it up. As Tudge says (p 24) ‘today’s cash assessments are unrealistic since they take little account of the well-being of people outside the western world’.

Although it is true that many practices in traditional agriculture are soundly based on empirical knowledge, they are often not suitable for the rapidly changing conditions of today; for instance, not able to sustain annual cropping without destroying soil structure. We make a distinction here between this type of agriculture and other ‘low’ technology practices, based on theoretical knowledge about the soil and about the contribution of various crops to fertility, such as those used by good gardeners everywhere. There is no reason why a sound fusion of local empirical experience coupled with scientific understanding should not raise productivity in developing countries as it did in Europe before the machine age and before agricultural chemicals. ‘a Buringh and van Heemst, op cit. Ref 5.

Knowledge intensive agriculture

As we have argued above, however, this need not be seen as benefitting only the poor. It is through their interest in their own land that the poorest are likely to make the effort to boost production, with all the benefits that result throughout the economy; and it is through lack of incentive when working land for others or working to pay the interest on loans, that production is effectively depressed by the existing system. Going hand in hand with land reform there must, of course, be a more equitable distribution of available supplies of water from irrigation and water conservation projects if the full benefits discussed are to be achieved.

lt is clear that getting food to those who really need it does not mean, for those of us in the rich north, switching to a vegetarian diet, volunteering for service overseas, or writing books and papers, but urging our own governments to support action which will enable the poorer people to act for themselves, freeing them from traps of exploitation, deprivation, and so on. The guiding principle must be the evidence that increased productivity has seldom made more food available for the poorest people except when redistributive policies have been imposed by government - as clear a basis as any for deciding which governments deserve support.

Labour intensive farming

Some advocates of self-reliant policies for agriculture imply that this can be provided by labour intensive means with traditional inputs alone.13 This is debatable at present and certainly questionable looking even a decade or two ahead. A Wageningenr4 study shows that efficient labour intensive agriculture with present methods could only feed the present world population if twice as much land as now (2600 million as opposed to 1400 million hectares) were cultivated. In addition, about 3900 million hectares would be required as grazing land for animals to provide sufficient manure! Therefore, efficient labour intensive agriculture using traditional methods can only be regarded as an (important) short term aid to the needs of poor countries, a stop gap while for the longer term scientifically based methods of farming extensive areas of fertile land are developed. These improved agricultural methods will require some capital inputs, but would not be regarded as capital intensive by the standards of present investment in Third World projects made by northern and national agribusinesses. The initial effort should be directed at the most straightforward problems, such as: improving the timeliness of harvests to ensure least waste in the fields, improved post-harvest technology, management and distribution of irrigation water, and applications of the most suitable fertilizers at times and places where they will be most effective.

It has generally been usual for yields per hectare to decline with increasing size of holding, but there is no agricultural reason for this to occur with best practice aimed at maximizing yield. The apparent decline in efficiency associated with bigger farms is a result of their being managed to produce the greatest cash profits, which might mean highly capital intensive moves to maximize the financial return on labour, rather than maximizing crop yields.

Looking beyond the fertile lands, simple ‘modern’ methods to improve yields would include irrigation, enabling cultivation of arid

FOOD POLICY November 1978 275

Knowledge irztensive agriculture

l5 Buringh eta/, opcit, Ref 1.

‘= Case histories discussed at the zones, which, with their long growing season, could be harvested two

International Peace Research or three times a year for many food crops.15

Association’s workshop on Food Aid for 1973, Amsterdam, noted that while a case could be made for food aid durino .,

Short term tactics

the periods of supply shortage, all too often food aid has been inappropriate. The creation of a dependency on expensive highly refined imported foods, foreign to a traditional diet, eventually means a drain on scarce foreign exchange. Food aid, although often provided on concessionary terms, is rarely free aid, especially when one considers the high opportunity costs of transportation and distribution (in particular through supplementary feeding and food for work programmes), much of which might be avoided with an agricultural policy designed with self- reliance in mind. ” If people in rich countries, on the other hand, were to eat less meat this would be no help to the poor, since they would be unable to pay for any grain freed for the market as a result. Indeed, the effect of meat abstinence in the rich north would simply be to remove some land from production of food altogether. I8 See, for example, M. Gorky, Morhec A Novel in Two Parts, 47th edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, c 1955, and numerous other editions; and My Childhood, translated by R. Wilks, Penguin Classics, Harmondsworth, 1969. ‘¶ Butz was speaking at the conference on ‘European Agriculture after Mansholt’, at the Waldorf Hotel in London, October 1972. 2o Many developing countries already do this in ‘forest gardens’ but drop the habit when they start to ‘farm’. Throughout Southeast Asia families cultivate temporary gardens in the forest, growing a variety of plants: these mature at different times, make different demands on the soil and grow to different heights, thus simultaneously conserving soil fertility and moisture by providing permanent cover.

There are four main ways of maintaining plant cover to protect soil from excessive evaporation: (1) cultivation of perennial crops; (2) growing alternating rows of different crops which will be harvested at different times; (3) undersowing one crop with another: and (4) mulching with straw, other plant remains, manure or plastic. Which of these are used in any situation should be a matter for on-the-spot decisions, but obviously the second and third have the added advantage of increased yield, and, if the right mixtures are selected. of maintaining soil fertility. For instance the well-known practice of undersowing wheat with lucerne is paralleled in tropical regions by maize and mung beans.

In regions with a long growing season, the practice of taking more than one

conrinuedonpage277

The pressing world food problem centres on the fact that some regions, because of seasonal, political or geophysical catastrophes, are actually without food at present and are likely to be short of food for a year or more. Such regions require immediate help and buffers against shortage while they restore their productivity. But it is not clear that food aid as practised to date is in fact beneficial, and there is some evidence that it may cause long term harm.16

Apart from in these crisis areas, short term tactics should be those requiring no physical inputs other than labour and very local resources, with a priority for raising productivity in areas where actual or near shortage is known to exist. The controversy about the grain or energy equivalent of animals is irrelevant here; where a region has areas suitable for animals but not for crops, then animals are a sensible product, and provide not just food but manure for crops.” Desert and semi-desert areas can often support animals in large enough numbers to give milk, blood and meat where they cannot support drops all the year round.

It would be more efficient (though not more profitable) to produce meat by grazing rather than by intensive feed, but this would have implications for wildlife conservation since pasture improvement and protection of stock would alter natural habitats. It might also slow down the surplus production so embarrassing to rich country agriculture and which makes so little contribution to the needs of poor countries, but this is a rather different matter from taking positive steps to improve the distribution of food.

One might ask - and some have - why, if the temperate regions of the globe can produce a surplus of meat (and other foods) it should not be redistributed to regions which have none? This is indeed now happening, but only where the meatless regions have the money to buy meat on the world markets. The USSR, Japan and the oil-rich countries are all regions where formerly little meat was eaten but which now import meat or grain to feed their animals. Once the USSR, indeed, exported wheat while the poor ate beets, cabbage and potatoes, and (to judge from Gorky’s novels18) none of them in great variety or profusion. Their meat consumption is now approaching that of Europe in the 195Os, and an unreliable high latitude climate does not guarantee enough grass or grain to feed the necessary cattle and other meat animals, so that arrangements have been made for long term grain imports, arrangements which then US Secretary for Agriculture, Earl Butz, referred to (apparently seriously) as having ‘saved America’s mid-West’.19

There are many practices known to temperate agriculture and used in horticulture which could be applied immediately in developing countries on a more widespread basis without financial cost, except for the cost of advice. These include:

0 Maintaining plant cover throughout the year by growing crops of varying ages and different species.”

0 Covering bare soil - when it cannot be covered by crops - with mulches of leaves, litter or brushwood, or even plastic sheeting if available, to trap moisture and protect young plants.

276 FOOD POLICY November 1978

co~ti~uedfromp~ge 276

harvest per season is already established in well watered areas in parts of southeast Asia and in temperate market gardening. Where water can be made available and soil nutrients can be replenished by appropriate mixtures of crops, by manure or by chemical fertilizers, such muJti~ropp~ng offers enormous potential for increasing yields. Viable systems have been and are being researched at international regional centres such as IRRI and ICRISAT and at Chienq Mai University in Thailand. ‘I Se&al colonial powers carried out soil surveys of many regions administered by them. These should be made available to the new independent governments. 22 Griffin, Land Concentration and Rural Poverty, op cit. Ref 12. 23 Ranching of edible wild animals has been piloted in New Zealand. southern Africa and the USSR, and could usefully combine tourist and ~~~~jng interests with meat production. ” Griffin, tand Concentration and Rural Poverty, op tit, Ref 12. *‘Since it seems probable that climatic shifts are now causing extension of northern deserts southward, while northern margins may in some cases be becoming less arid. this kind of planning should avoid the trap of making large investments in the newly arid regions to ‘roll back the desert’, and should instead concentrate on regions where such climatic shifts are bringing beneficial effects. Detailed studies are needed to identify regions where agricultural investment is likely to prove most profitable tin terms of yields) through bending in this way with the wind of climatic change. Certainly too much reliance should not be placed on concepts of ‘average’ or ‘normal’ climate, especially rainfall, based on figures for the middle and early 20th century, a time of very unusual global climate judged by the available data for the past thousand years. See John Gribbin, ‘Climatic change and food production’, Food Policv. Vol 1. No 4, 19?6, pp 301-312; John’Gribbin, The Climatic Threat, Fontana, London. and Scribner’s, New York. 1978; and Stephen Schneider, The Genesis Strategy. Plenum, tondon and New York, 1976.

Kmrrkfge bfetlsise a~rict&ure

0 Utilizing all available sources of plant nutrients - vegetable and crop waste, sewage, manure, river water, ash, chemical fertilizer (where appropriate) and making compost.

II Rotating crops to balance plant nutrients in soil. e Adopting contour ploughing, and terracing on sloping land in

arid regions, rather than scratch-hoeing.

Further action could be undertaken rapidly but requires some prior investigation or at least study of reports of previous investigations:

0 Identjfication of nutrient requirements of soils in needy areas and making ~~~~~~~~ chemical fertilizers available in the light of this knowledge to meet specific deficiencies - a technique now being implemented successfully in Irelande2’

a Similar identification of irrigation needs, as in Sri Lanka and Kerala.**

0 Identification of promising plants (as by the International Biological Programme - IBP) and animals, for development into more efficient food producers.23

@ Meeting already identified needs for more machinery, provision of cash credits, outlets for surpluses and transport networks.

And, running in conjunction with all of the above, land and water reform should be carried out aimed at eliminating the monopoly power of large landholders over labour and resources, with supporting political effort to maintain the initial increases in yield which have historically occurred.2J

Long term strategy

While self-reliant agricultural policy cannot be achieved without the active pa~icipation of the ~pulation in individual countries, appropriate means to facilitate achieving our preferred ends are already embodied in declared UN aims as outlined by the FAO, World Health ~rg~ization (WHO), Internation~ Labour organization (ILO) and other organizations. Briefly, they seek to enable most people to have access to sufficient food to guarantee both health and choice; to avoid wastage of food, land and inputs; and to prevent producers of large surpluses from exerting political leverage over deficiency areas. Most of the policies advocated here have been advocated already, and we suggest that they could most readily be implemented in the following order with considerable overlap:

First, UN agencies should be authorized by the General Assembly to coordinate food policies so that wealthy and/or powerful nations and/or blocs cannot maintain or establish hegemony over others.

decors, agriculture should be planned nationally and regionally to use existing knowledge to conserve soil, enhance fertility and increase productivity per hectare wherever possible, while maint~ning productivity elsewhere.25

Third, research into potential food plants already identified by IBP should be encouraged by the UN and supported by governments, as has occurred in the case of protein research.

Fourth, there should be research into developing appropriate farm implements and machines which would increase yields by reducing the constriction of bottlenecks, providing better ability to cope with

FOOD POLICY November 1978 277

26A. Herrera, Chapter 23 in The Ari af

Anticipatiort, S. Encel et al, eds, Martin Robertson, London, 1974. 27 Many peapte on low-meat diets already eat insect larvae, earthworms, moifuscs, termites and so on: sometimes these are regarded as deiicacies.

28 Griffin, op cif, Ref 12. 29Traditional agriculture may not be appropriate to changing conditions, perhaps requiring a long fallow period, for example, or flaoding once a year, or grazing which may be precluded by changing economic, political and even environmental conditions. Application of knowledge of soit composition, biodegradation of organic matter. nutritional requirements of various plants, yielding capacity of different strains, and so on, can be utilized, with sufficient labour, to raise or maintain yieids while abandoning traditional methods of adapting them to present needs. This is what happened in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and again in the 18th. before mechanization of agriculture.

One very dangerous existing trend, remarked on by others, would also be countered by our proposed path of ‘scientific’ agricultural reform. This is the problem of the destructive impact on the local environment of poor people who m5ve into marginaf or unstable environments isuch as semi-arid regions) and ‘mine‘ them, growing what they can while the fertility, such as it is, lasts, and then moving on with a new desert region left behind. While marginal Savannah or former forest lands are used in this way, a profligate ‘spending’ of agricultural ‘capital’, the problems of poverty may be masked for a while, only to emerge in a more vicious form as the effects of erosion begin to bite. Robert Chambers (personal communication): see also Development Farurn. United Nations, Geneva, July 1978, p 1. 3o This would require the disengagement of the UN from such policies as presently foilowed by the FAO’s lndustriaf Cooperative Program. As documented by C. Jacoby, Transnational corporations in Third World agricuitufe’. Deve/~~~e~~ and Chan.qe, July 1975, and B. Boiton,

‘Agribusiness and FAG’, food Policy, Vol

2. No 3. 1977, pp 240-244, the channelling of investment through transnational corporations is directly opposed to those policies necessary in following a more self-reliant path of development.

highly concentrated seasonal activities such as planting and harvesting, and increasing the range of soils which can be cultivated. Care must be taken, however, to avoid misdirected application of mechanization which, by increasing unemployment, does not help the poor land worker.

Fifth, all nitrogen fixing plants identified by the IBP should be investigated as potential food crops, while alternative sources of nitrogen or means of capture already researched are developed and applied.

Sixth, efforts to integrate local knowledge of food resources into research systems should be intensified, so that these resources can be developed optimally as quickly as possible.26

Sepent/r, ranching of indigenous wild animals should be encouraged and assisted. Research into the food potential of edible invertebrates should be begun2’

Eighth, in parallel with points l-6, land and water reform policies should be developed as outlined above to ensure that the people working the land have a direct interest in increasing productivity. It must be accepted that this will require, in many cases, drastic restructuring of existing political and social institutions, following examples such as those discussed in depth by Griffin.**

Land and water reform, so often called for in the past, supported and maintained by policies which ensure that access to resources is more equitable than it is presently, remains an essential first step. This must be followed by conversion of traditional agriculture into scientific labour intensive agriculture, with world food stocks used only for emergencies. When mechanization is introduced, it should be through machinery designed and chosen for the specific tasks involved, utilizing local skills in both design and construction wherever possible.29

We argue that one way to achieve the changes necessary to ensure that everyone in the world is adequately fed might be through the UN. This might seem to some as over-Optimistically idealistic, and there must be grave doubts about the compatibility of the need for agrarian reform (plus political reform) with UN activities and practised strategies, as opposed to the theoretical declared aims of particular agencies and even the UN in general.30 Nevertheless, UN agencies have in the past influenced the development of agricultural techniques and their dissemination worldwide (eg, high yield varieties, irrigation, protein research), and certainly could influence such developments in the future in ways which will facilitate (or, if they choose, impede) the eventual redistribution which we see as essential. The alternative to aiding this process, to making it an evolutionary change, is to hold down the lid on existing inequahties until they boil up into a violent red~st~bution of land and political reform, the path which has been followed so often in history, from England in the 16th and 17th centuries, to Cuba, China, Molucca and others in the 20th century.

One way or another, however, redistribution of land and water supplies seems inevitable. Accepting that, our most important conclusions concern the inadequacy of the scientific base of most low latitude agriculture. The lesson is still to be learned, that it is not the

FOOD POLICY November 1978

31 See, for example, Wiiliams, op tit, Ref 8. 32 Dov Nir, The Semi Arid World, Longmans, London, 1974. 33 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Report of the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on a Code of Conduct on Transfer of Technology, TD/B/C.Gl, 26 May 1975.

methods of northern agriculture (the techniques which provided such a boost to 19th century temperate agriculture) that should be imported into developing countries in warmer climates, but the theoretical knowledge of the biochemistry of soil and the ways in which fertility is created and destroyed, on which those methods of northern agriculture were founded. 31 Given those scientific studies, agricultural systems appropriate to different climate and soil conditions can be developed in appropriate forms of ‘best farming practice’. In many tropical countries, where much food is produced in lakes and canals, scientific principles relating to protection and development of aquatic production need to be applied, before the waterways are destroyed by over-use or pollution.

The third fundamental feature of our proposals to ensure food for the poorest involves the development of robust machinery, tailored to the necessary work, so that productivity can eventually be increased beyond the capacity of even the most intensive unaided human endeavours. In some countries, for example, terracing of hilly land is not undertaken because it requires more labour than is available; small, robust machinery has been developed for such tasks and should be made available where needed. Similarly, systems of rain- saving such as those used in pre-colonial East Africa could be built.32

However, these developments require something more from the present rich nations, since the poorest do not yet have the finances to pay for such technological developments, and it will take too long for their economic strength to grow sufficiently. There must be basic agreements on more equitable terms of trade than presently exist; adherence to international guidelines as developed by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) for the transfer of technology;33 and a more serious approach to the establishment of an autonomous international development agency for cooperation in science and technology. In some cases solutions such as these will require restricting practices and investments previously viewed as attractive to industry in developed nations - without expecting a direct economic benefit. Otherwise, except by more violent means, there seems no way out of the vicious circle in which, in order to be fed people must exercise political power, but in order to be capable of achieving political power they need to be healthy and adequately fed. Concerned people in the rich countries, or among the rich citizens of poor countries, must exert pressure on their own governments to move UN agencies in the required direction. No amount of debate or rational planning can disguise the need for political planning and political decisions if the possibility of an adequately fed world is to be achieved.

FOOD POLICY November 1978 279