Farmers require tools to feed all world's hungry

[TOM4CWB]

IDNUMBER 201108250008
DOCID: 116780972
PUBLICATION: The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
DATE:2011.08.25
SECTION: Forum
BYLINE: Richard Phillips And Lorne Hepworth
SOURCE: The StarPhoenix
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Farmers require tools to feed all world's hungry
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Phillips is the executive director of the Grain Growers of Canada and Hepworth is president of CropLife Canada.

We have seen a number of articles lately about food security, highlighting the rising cost of food and the growing world population. Boom and bust cycles are nothing new in agriculture, but we are now moving to an era where demand appears to outstrip supply and will do so for the foreseeable future.

Somalia serves as an unfortunate reminder that we simply must grow more food.

Farmers are up to the challenge of doing this with the help of plant science technologies. As farmers are out in their fields harvesting, it's a good time to remember that Canada is on the leading edge of innovative farm practices that help farmers grow more food on less land, using less water.

If farmers didn't have access to plant science technologies like pesticides and plant biotechnology, Canada would need 37 million more acres of farmland to yield the same amount of production it does today. To put this into perspective, that's equal to all of the farmed land in Saskatchewan.

As innovations continue to progress, imagine what more we can do.

Research in plant breeding and biotechnology is working toward genetic improvement in seeds, which will give farmers access to seeds that grow better in drought conditions or in excessive water, seeds that can grow in high salinity soils that normally do not support healthy growth, and seeds for crops that can better withstand viral and insect diseases that have the potential to rob farmers of yields and affect the quality of crops.

One of the big benefits of novel seed technology is the advantages to both big and small farmers. Just look at the record of smallholder farmers who've adopted biotechnology: 19 of the 29 countries that are now growing biotech crops are developing countries, and 90 per cent of farmers using the technology are smallholder farmers.

The advantage of growing biotech crops means even more to them. It's a stepping stone to a better life when you consider the economic advantages that come from the increased yields made possible by biotech crops.

If we look at biotechnology in Canada, Canadian farmers chose genetically modified options for approximately 90 per cent of the canola they plant, 85 per cent of the corn, and 65 per cent of soybeans. This is because of the economic advantages these technologies deliver. Increased production generates $7.9 billion worth of additional economic activity annually for farmers of field, vegetable and fruit crops.

With the help of plant science technologies, Canadian farmers produce enough food to meet our country's needs and supply more than 150 other nations with Canadian crops. They can do this while at the same time protecting the environment by using innovative farm practices, such as conservation tillage.

It used to be that farmers had to till the soil to reduce weeds. But that practice had a less than desirable effect because it produced significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions and was bad for soil quality, and for water and soil erosion. Thanks to modern plant science technologies and farming practices, farmers are able to adopt conservation tillage or no-till systems, which means they make fewer passes over the field.

In 2008, 12 billion kilograms of CO2 was prevented from entering the atmosphere thanks to conservation tillage. With results like this, it's easy to understand why farmers have adopted these tools (about 72 per cent of cropland in Canada is farmed using conservation and no-till practices).

With fewer passes made over the field, less fuel is burned. For every acre of land farmed using conservation tillage, four litres less fuel is used than with conventional tillage practices. Annually, fuel use is reduced by about 171 million litres.

Plant science technologies can help produce enough food to feed the world's population, but more can be done.

Looking at what plant science technologies have already achieved, it's now important that Canada ask itself what its agricultural future will be. Is it enough to continue to feed the world or do our technologies have the potential to increase the nutritional content in the foods we rely on for good health as well as address nutritional deficiencies in developing countries?

We believe farmers and the plant science industry can play a pivotal and transforming role in Canada's agricultural future and around the world."

[wilagro]

Thank GAWD for Monsanto's Roundup and Roundup-ready crops. We can save the cost of those extra passes over the fields and buy more Monsanto products with the money saved.

And as more and more weeds become resistant to Roundup and similar products we can shift to another product to buy to control those and on and on she goes. Pretty soon ALL of the weeds will become resistant to herbicides and then what?...I have it...more passes over the field with our cultivators, discs and plows.

[ColevilleH2S]

Wilagro are you saying we were better off before Round-up?

[checking]

I think what he's saying is that the world would be better off with no wars, and people could concentrate on feeding themselves instead of running from bullets.

[parsley]

Ridiculous press release. 'Pay for research so we can feed the world'.

Canadian farmers cannot afford to feed the world. Duh.

Nor can the poor afford to buy from G 8's.

If we choose to sell to people who have no money, we are indeed stupid, and have ridiculous leadership.

Nor can Canadian farmers afford to fund the research to develop drought resistant varietes that are suitable for regions of the Sudan, and Territorial Africa where they are being planted and developed in the poorest land.

Biotech companies should beg Saudi Arabia for funding where they have dry regions. At least they can afford to pay for the research. The Canadian government borrows money to fund.

Unsound, uneconomical practices and wayward governing will not help farmers. It's simple economics. Pars

[TOM4CWB]

Parsley,

I knew you would enjoy this article!

Be NICE! Be Positive!

Better to have folks fed and happy than shooting nukes at each other because they want YOUR food, water, land, and freeedom to defend your way of life... Parsley!

[wilagro]

ColevilleH2S: I am saying no such thing. All I'm saying is that the products like Roundup are not the 'miracle' products that will revolutionize agriculture and there are hazards involved in their constant use. Roundup has certainly been of advantage and I don't know how no-till would work without it or an equivalent product. However we can just as easily hit a brick wall when too many weeds become tolerant to Roundup and no-till doesn't produce the desired benefit.

[Choice2U]

Thank the lord for the entrepreneurial spirit. The multinational or some brilliant individual or something/one in between will come across something to make glyphosate (RU) obsolete thereby, once again, continuing to reduce the starvation curve (not the numbers but the % of people in the world). Another option would be to stifle this spirit with the likes of over-regulation or socialism and then watch the curve go up....but then radical socialists ie. communists could regulate population growth using their past unsavory methods. This could only happen if one believes that history repeats itself?

[charliep]

Interesting how biotechnology always comes back to herbicide tolerance/use of a specific product. Not really highlighted all that much in the original article.

A weird question but is plant breeding and the new varieties keeping up with mechanization and the technology in equipment farmers are using? When you compare our seed genetics and plant breeding investment, is Canada keeping up or falling behind other crop producing regions?

[wd9]

Crop life is not saying the whole world, just the world that can afford to grow biotech crops. They don't really care what happens with the production after its grown just as long as their technology is bought, and bought every year.

Its the same reason every 6 year old needs an iphone. Good marketing.

[chuckChuck]

Crop life is just PR on behalf of chemical and seed industry.

If food production continues on its path of high fossil energy input and the depletion of Phosphorous fertilizers we are in big trouble in the long term.

All the BS about feeding the world with biotechnology is just crap. Good technology will play a role. But hunger isn't caused by a supply issue. There is currently enough food in the world. Apparently we have a big enough land and food surplus to use it to make ethanol and bio-diesel.

The issue is poverty. Try feeding your family on $1 per day. If there was political will we could solve the hunger issue. But poor Africans don't vote in the election of rich countries.

Many of the worlds poorest are small scale farmers who feed themselves. They need good varieties that they can save the seed from without being thrown in jail.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization published a report a few years ago that recommended that farmers in developing countries can increase yields by adopting, sustainable lower input methods and agronomy. Expecting very poor farmers to purchase expensive seeds and technology is foolish.

Small diverse farms with livestock, good crop rotations, and improved agronomy using lower input methods will increase production from where it is now.

Monsanto and company are not interested in small scale poor farmers because they can't make money from them.

[Braveheart]

High winds this week damaged some canola swaths. Some east/west swaths rolled up north/south swaths disloged and spread around.

Airplane and later broadcast canola 2-3 weeks from swathing. Need a miracle.

Spring wheat just getting going with reported yields from 18- 65 bus/ac.

[hobbyfrmr]

Crop life is not saying the whole world, just the world that can afford to grow biotech crops. They don't really care what happens with the production after its grown just as long as their technology is bought, and bought every year.

I agree. Crop life is the fert and chem companies "beeyotch". They are presenting a sad and twisted version of reality for the general public. It deflects away from this fact.

Monsanto and company are not interested in small scale poor farmers because they can't make money from them.

WD9 and Chuck are very smart people.

I have always carried mixed emotions with farming and starving people. My neighbor is a 50,000 acre farmer, he grows the very biggest and very best crops and is a teriffic, highly efficient farmer. He is also a decent person. There are still people starving. This guy, one farm production unit, will grow (my fast and rough math) 1.5 million bushels of oats, 875,000 bushels of canola and 750,000 bushels of wheat. There are still people starving. To fix a political disfunction with agronomics is naive at best. Thank God we do not have to run from bullets.

[tman]

Good post chuck. I get a kick out of the industry when they try to get philosophical about feeding the world. I interpret this as their way of justifying flawed production practices to the public, or to themselves. If we truly wanted to get philosophical and talk about feeding the world which is very socialistic, which is the basis of true Christianity (at least from what I've heard), then we need to change. Changes including crops grown to plant breeding to North Americans NOT shoveling their faces full of food and becoming obese. Of course a lot or most of that food that is making North Americans fat is NOT food. If we actually start growing food on all of our acres instead of pseudo food then we can start talking philosophically.

But of course, that's not where this industry is at.

Now I must get back to help harvest the family's bin busting canola crop. (that was said with tongue in cheek as Adler would say).