The Hindu Business Line : Gene revolution must reach poor farmers: FAO

GENE revolution seems to be bypassing poor farmers especially in the developing countries even though the technology has great potential for addressing agriculture related issues affecting the poor, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

In its annual report `State of Food and Agriculture 2003-04', the UN agency lamented that only farmers in a few developing countries were reaping the benefits of biotechnology while basic food crops of the poor such as cassava, potato, rice and wheat received little attention from scientists.

Terming cowpea, millet and sorghum as `orphan crops' critical for food supply and livelihood of the poor, the Director Feneral of FAO, Mr Jacques Diouf, said: ``Neither the private nor the public sector has invested significantly in new genetic technologies.''

Inadequate regulatory procedures, complex intellectual property issues, poorly functioning markets and seed delivery systems, and weak domestic plant breeding capacity also prevented the poor from accessing and benefiting from modern biotechnology.

Biotechnology should complement and not replace conventional agricultural technologies, the FAO said adding that this technology could speed up conventional breeding programmes and offer solutions wherever conventional methods failed.

Currently, a large part of the private sector investment is concentrated on just four crops— cotton, maize, canola and soyabean. Interestingly, a sizeable part of these produce is used as animal feed, either as direct feed (maize) or as meal after extraction of oil.

Two billion more people have to be sustained over the next 30 years from an increasingly fragile natural resource base. The challenge was to develop technologies that combined several objectives like increasing yields and reducing costs, protecting the environment, addressing consumer concerns for food safety and quality and enhancing rural livelihood and food security, the FAO said.