Agriculture & Biotechnology

Index

MONOCULTURAL FOOD

The fungus that started the Irish potato famine 150 years ago and killed at least 1.5 million people--about one fifth of the population--through starvation and diseases such as typhus, is coming back with a vengeance. The potato late blight, Phytophthora infestans, which can transform a green field of potatoes into a rotting mass within days, is held at bay with large applications of fungicide. Attempts at breeding more resistant crops have achieved only partial success. The European strain of the fungus, known as A1, which used to reproduce asexually, started to mate with a Mexican strain, A2 in 1976. The two can produce oosphores--microscopic eggs--which can lie in the soil over winter and infect the next crop to be planted. The new strain will also possess greater genetic potential to mutate further resistance to new fungicides. This is yet another example of the fact--not well known to the eating public--that much of our food is now genetically vulnerable. More serious than the potato, is the plight of all the different varieties of cereals. The plant geneticists are only able to keep a year or two ahead of the viruses that inevitably hit each new type that is developed. Monoculture is a very dangerous game and politicians, who are usually lawyers rather than scientists, are almost totally oblivious of the facts. From an article by Nicholas Schoon in Independent on Sunday, 22 January 1995

Back to Agriculture & Biotechnology Index GENETIC PETROCHEMICALS by Phillip Ball What many people don't realise is that when the oil and natural gas resources start running out, as they surely will in the next decade or so at present rates of economic growth, then it won't be just a matter of energy prices and transport costs and suchlike rocketing upwards. There will also be serious shortages of many plastics and drugs that are presently manufactured from fossil fuels. Scientists are aware that there will be a great need to develop new and efficient methods of making these petrochemicals from the only free resources that we will have then -- solar radiation. Some researchers, headed by Bernard Wiltholt at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich are proposing what sounds like the ultimate green dream: a plastics factory stretching over acre after acre, but without a chemical vat or oil-filled pipeline in sight. Instead there is nothing but a vast field of potatoes. This bizarre vision, which brings a whole new meaning to the image of the chemical plant, involves potatoes using carbon-rich compounds, which they would otherwise convert into starch, as the raw material for making a plastic that is not only tough but biodegradable. The potatoes will perform this trick by virtue of genetic engineering. There is also the suggestion of transferring the genes to trees, allowing companies to grow plastic in plantations just as producers do with rubber. From an article in Independent on Sunday, 8 January 1995

Back to Agriculture & Biotechnology Index GENERAL LUDD RIDES AGAINST BIOTECHNOLOGY by Pat Kaner At the moment there is a smattering of reaction against the use of hormones and gene-splicing in agriculture--whether they are hormone-stuffed milk cows, or long-lasting tomatoes that have been arrived by introducing fish DNA. But it is the possible monstrosities--the mutant human-pigs of the future farm, the killer virus escaping from a lab, the DNA profile that claims to define your character and predict your death--that incite the modern Luddite loom-smashing urge. Enough of science and technology! Leave the stuff of life alone! A recent opinion survey carried out by the Open University's Centre for Technology revealed that legitimate Luddite questions are being asked about bio-technology in the popular mind. This is not the normal reactionary view of those who regard scientific research in a hostile way. This is much more pointed criticism. What is genetic reasearch being used for? Who benefits? Is it needed? Who controls it? Is it in fact controllable? Could some viruses sweep the earth and destroy us? Before we accept the transgenic tomato or the sure-fire cancer warning, we are telling the scientists that they must satisfy our suspicions about their mighty works. That's General Ludd abroad again, riding under the banner of common sense. From an article in the Sunday Times, 22 January 1995

Back to Agriculture & Biotechnology Index CAP THREATENS EXPORTS by James Harding US farm exports will outperform European agricultural products in key emerging markets worldwide unles Mr Franz Fischler, European Union's agriculture commissioner, pursues fundamental reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). That was the warning from the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service (ADAS), Britain's executive Agency offering farm consultancy, which aimed to show its independence from government in a strongly-worded attack on European farm policy preempting the agricultural minister's thank-tank report on CAP expected shortly. Last week, Mr William Waldegrave, the UK agriculture minister, announced that ADAS would be privatised in 1997 if, by then, it could put an end to its losses. In an unually direct criticism of Mr Fischler from a government agency, Mr Chris Bourchier, ADAS's head of agricultural development, launched the 1995 Agricultural Strategy paper, syaing: "It is clear that the agriculture commissioner is developing a moderating stance and, in the near future, is not pursuing fundamental change to the current CAP. A 'Fortress europe' approach would prevent EU countries from taking advantage of critical new markets." Picking up on the new rules on world trade agreed in the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which came into force over the week-end, the ADAS forecast for the next decade in UK and European farming, concludes: "Europe's current supply-controlled CAP is fundamentally incompatible with a liberal world trading framework determined by the GATT". To make the most of export opportunities in emerging markets such as China and east Asia, both already targeted by the US, British farmers will have to attack unit costs in preparation for competition with the Americans, ADAS argues. In the light of large cost differentials between US prices and those of the UK -- the former being about two-thirds -- and bearing in mind US marketing strategies to Asia already under way, ADAS forecasts that here would be a rapid export growth for US farm exports worldwide while, for the most part, European trade would stagnate. ADAS strongly recommends decoupling income support payments from market support, scrapping supply controls such as quotas and acreage set-aside, bringing surplus land back into production and encouraging environment-friendly farming practice in return for direct payments. From an article in the Financial Times, 4 July 1995

RURAL ECONOMY

"The various production and input subsidies and price supports in the UK have not maintained marginal farmers, as is usually claimed, but rather has helped increase farm size and decreased the number of farmers. The various supports have increased the capitalisation of agriculture, leading to the substitution of machinery for labour and encouraging farm amalgamations, contrary to the usual arguments for CAP. Between 1875 and 1939, the mean farm size was more or less steady when agriculture received little support." (Paul Allanson speaking at The Centre for Rural Economy Jan 1995) "Increasingly, agricultural support policy will have to become a rural environment support policy. The rural areas are the sites for the replenishment of renewable resources such as plants, animals, the soil, air, fresh water and continuing energy resources such as wind, solar energy and water power. Safeguarding this environmental reservoir is the chief aim of rural planning. Already some farming groups have accepted this logic. At present the UK Government spends about £200 million on rural environmental management covering about a quarter of the country's land surface. In addition, about £100 million from the Environmentally Sensitive Areas scheme is paid to those farmers who give up intensive production methods and use traditional environment-friendly farming. But much of this money goes to farmers who do not actually change what they were already doing. We need a fundamental reappraisal of agricultural policy." (Prof Philip Lowe speaking at The Centre for Rural Economy Jan 1995)