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World Food
Conference-
the Overlooked lssues
Rome:
Around the wo rld , over 460 rnil–
lion people - more than double the
popul a tion o f the United Sta tes -
a re right now threatened with st ar–
va tion. It is feared tha t sorne 1
O
mil–
Lion people will d ie th is year a lone.
lt
is also estima te0 tha t most o f the
vict ims will be chi ld ren under fi ve
years o f age.
T hese were the grim sta tistics tha t
greeted 1,250 delegates from 430
na ti ons who gathered November 5-
16 in Rome fo r the United Nations
sponsored Wo rld Food Conference.
Opening the conference, U.N.
Secr eta ry Genera l Kurt Wa ldheim
st a ted : " lt is difficult to review the
sequence o f events tha t led to th e
cur rent food crisis wi thout fee ling a
sense of d ismay a t th e lack o f fore–
sight and sense of cornrnon interest
which has been shown by indi vid–
ua ls, governments a nd by the inter–
na tiona l cornrnunities."
Mr. Waldheirn's rema rks have
borne
o ~;t
the staggering rea lity tha t
on its present course the na tions of
the world rnust increase gra in out–
pul by roughly the equivalent o f the
Canadi an. Austra lian and Argen–
tine wheat crops
each year
just to
keep u p with dernand. T ha t is rn ind–
boggling to comprehend.
Just to atternpt to accomplis h
such a he rculean task is awesome
enough. G rea tly complica ting the
situation is the fact tha t world agri–
culture is becoming increasingly d e–
pend en! upo n fewer a nd fewe r
varie ties of the basic food crops
which are now being mass produced
each yea r just to try and head off
starvation for the rn ill10ns mentioned
above. Wha t no one has touched
upon a t this food confere nc c is
the staggering po te ntial fo r ex–
plosive outbreaks o f plant d isease
that both gene ti c standa rdization
a nd grain rnonoculture are posing
fo r producers of these crops and
subsequently fo r the hundreds o f
rnillions of lives dependen! upon
these very same crops for food.
In o th e r wo rds, mo d e rn - d ay
breeding for select - usually high–
yield - crops of standard height,
texture. a nd time of ripening has
meant an increasing genetic unifor–
rnity within the plant species. Thus
when disease stri kes, it can move
through the entire crop. which rnay
stre tch across entire growi ng a reas.
with fa r rners helpless
19
do any thing
about it.
This was the case in the United
Sta tes in 1970 when close to 50% of
th e corn crop was wiped out by
blight in sorne sta tes. Such an event
today with world g ra in reserves a t
a n all time low would have calami–
tous repercussions.
The rnarg in o f safe ty aga inst dis–
ease tha t was always provided by a
multitude of gene tic varieties within
each species is being systerna tically
destroyed by man 's na rrowing of
their genetic base. And every yea r,
additional thousands of na tive, so–
caBed prirnitive varieties a re lost.
perha ps forever.
In the thousands upon thousands
of words which poured for th a t the
World Food Conference, delegates
a nd observers a like seemed to ut–
terly gtoss ove r the inheren t weak–
ness of contemporary agric trltural
rne thods. lnstead, speeches and dis–
cussion invariably revolved around
c h ernica l fe rt i li ze r s, pes ti c id es,
rnec h a ni za ti o n , in c r e a sed tec h–
no logy. irriga tion, weather control,
newer high-yield "miracl e gra ins."
a nd vastly expanded food a id pro–
g ra ms. Left un addressed a t th e
Food Conference were sorne very
rlll
bas ic questions we need to ask our–
selves.
First, is the system of food pro–
duction on which rnan is staking his
future ca pa ble of the indefinite ex–
pa nsion, o r is it already becorning
self- limiting economi ca lly a nd eco–
logically even arnong the farmers in
the a ffiuent Wes tern world?
Secondly. does it rnake sense to
base our food supply on expensive
processing and transportation of pe–
troleurn-based fertilizers when ferti–
lizers are already p resent in most
agricultura ! soils and in the a t rno–
sphere?
T h ird. is it logical to intensify the
continuing oil crisis by all n a tions
competing in a despera te bid to pay
the going price for three tons o f o il
in order to produce every ton of
nitrogen fertil izer? It would no t
seem so in view of the fact that,
according lo one emi nent and well–
known a uthority, t he a tmosphere
contains 34,000 tons of nitrogen
a bove each acre o f ground .
Fourth, if healthy pla nts need a
ba lance of20 to 30 nut rients, can we
imagine wha t we a re doing to a ll
soil-dependent forms of life when
we doubl e and t riple produc ti on by
the addi tion of a t most only three of
these most needed nutrients?
Fifth, are the mill ions who casti–
ga te the Wes t fo r its luxury produc–
tion of a nima l protein rnindful of
the fact that such pro tein is meant
lo come from anima ls ea ting pas–
ture.
nor
grain? People are ap t a lso
to forget tha t this grain is now pro–
duced by crop monoculture - the
fas test rnethod
o[
soil destruction
known to rna n.
If
the wo rld 's farm–
ers grew the right crops, upgraded
pasture lands. and avoided most
g ra in f eeding o f a nirna ls, rna n
would have his animal protein. sup–
ply more g ra ins for hungry mou ths
a nd irnprove the soil - all a t the
same time!
. WORLD~JATCH
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