Summary of Shared Viewpoints among Conference Participants

 January 13-15, 2000

There are few issues more important - or more contentious - than the impact of globalization and technology change on global food production and the rural environment. Are the changes underway in world agriculture (movement from traditional to mechanical and chemical based farming systems, and more recently to information and biotechnology-based systems) compatible with sustainable food production, and compatible with rural environmental protection? Are these changes being driven forward by free choice within a competitive market environment, or by less liberal processes of technology imposition? When advocating "sustainable agriculture," what is it about farming that should be sustained? Efficient production of affordable food supplies for a growing world population, taking externalities into accounts? Or the biodiversity of rural ecosystems? Or a particular cultural pattern of human settlement and social land use? And are the answers the same all over the globe?

Natural and social scientists, NGO representatives, and private corporate leaders from Europe, the United States, and Latin America spent most of their time at this conference exploring their many differences. The participant list for this conference was drafted to ensure presentation and discussion of a wide range of views on each of these topics. Yet in the end it is worth noting several points of agreement that did emerge:

• Because of anticipated population and income growth, the annual volume of global agricultural production will have to continue increasingly rapidly over the next several decades. Decisions made by farmers to change technologies or change farming systems in the years ahead should be made with this unprecedented production imperative in mind.

 

• New biotechnologies such as transgenic crops and new information technologies such as GPS-assisted precision farming have been able in some places (particularly the United States and Argentina) to reduce the volume of chemical inputs needed to produce a given volume of food. For this reason, environmentalists should not reject such technologies out of hand. Caution is in order on environmental grounds when embracing transgenic crops (because of unwanted gene flow, pest resistance and other possible side effects). Case-by-case review is the best way to proceed, rather than either blanket release of transgenic seeds, or a blanket moratorium.

 

• Modern farming can do environmental damage either when chemical inputs are used too much (e.g., too much fertilizer application in Europe) or when soil nutrient depletion is allowed to proceed unchecked (e.g., a history of inadequate soil nutrient replacement in the Pampas of Argentina). Often it is the content of government policy (e.g., farm production subsidies in Europe and the United States, versus a history of farm export taxes in Argentina) that leads to these malfunctions as they tend to favor crop specialization and monoculture.

 

• Private markets - including international commodity markets - respond to commercial demand (i.e. demand backed by enough purchasing power), which in the world of food and agriculture does not always correspond with human need. The problem of the 850 million world citizens who remain chronically malnourished is precisely the lack of employment and income opportunities to have access to enough food. Therefore we should not expect that a world agricultural system based only on market forces would solve this problem. The "globalization" of those market forces does not make them any more sensitive to the needs of low-income consumers or low resource producers. What is needed is concentrated international and national efforts to create employment and income opportunities for the poor and malnourished through access to productive assets, human capital and appropriate technologies, while reinforcing remedial actions and safety nets.

 

• By the same token, private agribusiness and biotechnology companies make their largest investments in providing valuable new technologies to relatively advantaged farmers (who can pay for the technology), rather than poorer farmers on marginal lands. This being the case, we cannot afford to entrust the future of world agriculture to market forces alone. Different options must be protected, and it is the farmers that must define the value of these options. Information technology can help to inform all interested parties of alternative options.

 

• Private markets are especially deficient in funding basic research. Since "knowledge" is emerging as the most valuable resource of all in the world food system - both for producing enough food and for protecting the rural environment - we see an important role for the mobilization of research investments by public sector agencies, including national governments in both industrial and non-industrial countries, foreign assistance donors, and international financial and development institutions.

 

• It is highly desirable to promote and stimulate the maintenance and development of a diversity of land uses and farming practices to achieve rural sustainability. These uses include traditional agriculture, alternative production systems such as modern-style organic farming, agroindustries, acuaculture (when possible), agro-tourism (as well as cultural tourism in regions with historical or cultural value), ecological services, biological conservation, secondary residences for urban dwellers, and high-tech services (at the level of small entrepreneurs).

 

• There is no one technology or policy that can be applied all over the world to achieve sustainability in the rural environment. Each region according to the characteristics of its environment (soil, climate, topography), its comparative advantages, its social structure, cultural characteristics, and history will need to develop its own unique solution. Globalization and increased trade should be done in such a way that it will enhance each region’ ability to satisfy its demands for food while at the same time allowing it to concentrate on its own peculiar mix of characteristics.

 

• A key function that is the responsibility of government is investment in human capital, education and skills. This is essential to maintain and spread options for farmers and agricultural workers, including options for earning income and maintaining livelihoods either outside of farming (if they choose to leave farming or as supplement to their incomes from farming. Another key function of government is provision of public goods, in particular the infrastructure to assure access to both markets (labor, goods) and information. Government must provide not only physical infrastructure such as roads but also the infrastructure for information exchange and dissemination.

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