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Why `Green Revolution` has had a bitter harvest
2008-05-01 10:37:02
By Editor
The governments of many poor nations are alarmed by persistent rises in food prices, most of those now facing acute food shortages not having suspected that the technology that had brought wealth to their farmlands in the 1970s might one day have a downside.
The new strains of seed and chemical pesticides and fertiliser certainly brought such high yields then that the parts of Africa and Asia that adopted it coined the term `green revolution` (GR) in its honour, as it were.
Unfortunately for Tanzania, the success of the GR seems to have been left to benefit only the `Big Four` regions of Iringa, Mbeya, Morogoro and Rukwa.
The major problem for Tanzania and many other places in the world was that the benefit of high yields from the new seed types was short-lived, with pests keeping ahead of the pesticides introduced.
In recent years, wheat and rice farmers have had to resort to non-stop spraying to keep pests off food crops.
It is stressed that the spraying should go alongside the use of face masks and protective clothing but few farm workers heed the instructions.
The cause of cancer has always been a contentious issue but a new study by India’s Punjabi University has ruled out factors like age, alcohol intake and smoking, instead heaping most of the blame on the way the sprays are used.
It is a pity that the agricultural scientists who helped farmers to have the high yields of the 1970s are no longer around.
They could have come up with something better, include safer ways of using pesticide sprays.
Food crop yields have been getting lower by the day partly because farmers know their activities are hard to sustain in that oil price hikes make them spend more on sprays and fertiliser.
Few had heard about the benefits organic farming can offer.
The World Food Programme has aptly described global food price rises as a ‘tsunami’ affecting the poorest in the world, particularly in urban areas.
Its political consequences are already apparent in the troubled regions of Africa, including northern Uganda, eastern DR Congo and Somalia.
High oil prices, drought, over-intensive farming leading to lower yields, increased food demand, and the loss of land to biofuels have all played a part in ending the long period of cheap food that the world has enjoyed for the past 30 years.
One radical solution being touted is direct payment of subsidies to farmers.
During the mid-1980s, most of Africa`s major donors were opposed to the idea of providing cheap fertiliser to farmers as an incentive to enhanced food productivity.
Corruption and belief in the `wisdom` of allowing the market to decide prices had given subsidies a bad name.
But now international donors are steadily relenting and supporting targeted subsidies to farmers all the more.
Tanzania has turned the corner because the government directly subsidises fertiliser.
We can only hope that our farms will once more produce enough food for domestic consumption and the export market.
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