Ismail Serageldin

Speeches

The Challenge of Today and Tomorrow: Mobilizing Science to Serve the Poor

07/02/1997 | Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial Lecture

I. INTRODUCTION: TRIBUTE TO A "GENTLE LEADER"

Mr. Chairman, Colleagues and Friends

I am deeply touched by this opportunity to deliver the Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial Lecture. Like my twenty-three predecessors, I consider it a special privilege to join you in paying tribute to the memory of a world-renowned figure who is affectionately remembered as India’s "gentle leader." He was a leader of great compassion. He was, at the same time, unrelenting in his commitment to building peace and prosperity. His all-too-brief stewardship as Prime Minister of India (June 1964 - January 1966) created the groundwork for a transformed society; indeed, a transformed region.

Domestically, India’s continuing efforts to promote policies and programs for people-centered growth are in keeping with the orientation of his beliefs. His selection of Mr. C. Subramanian as Minister of Agriculture was a stroke of genius. Mr. Subramanian’s international task force, which included two CGIAR figures - M.S. Swaminathan and Ralph Cummings Sr. - mapped out India’s agricultural transformation. Externally, the five-point doctrine, based on mutual trust and respect among sovereign nations, which currently governs India’s foreign policy is based on the principles Mr. Shastri pressed on his contemporaries repeatedly, including at Tashkent in 1966. Truly, his legacy is a continuing influence and inspiration.

Like so many of this country’s leaders, Mr. Shastri received his earliest training through political imprisonment in the heyday of India’s freedom struggle and went on, after independence, to serve his country both in a provincial setting, and in the central government.

He faced a range of challenges with patience, skill, and loyalty to a set of defining principles:

domestic strength as a pre-requisite for external, mainly regional, stability,
a powerful nationwide campaign against hunger and poverty, as the foundation of domestic strength, and
adherence to consensual politics, in order to promote the widest possible acceptance of the policies and programs he proposed.

The consensus-building process he championed is arduous and time consuming. I can testify to this from my experience as Chairman of the CGIAR where all decisions are reached by consensus, not by head-counting. I am sometimes surprised and of course, gratified, that decisions are reached at all through such a hectic exchange of views among women and men of great intellectual capacity and strongly-held positions. So, too, must it be in India, where contention and disputation have been celebrated in prose and verse. But experience tells us that decisions reached through discourse and persuasion are usually long-lasting.

Whether Mr. Shastri was grappling with the prickly issues of regional peace and stability; moving toward promising, new vistas of bilateral engagement; responding to the sensitivities of provincial concerns in the domestic polity; or encountering the heartbreak of food crises; his emphasis was on constructing principles and undertaking programs that would endure. The long-last lasting impact of his policies is evident even today. We salute his wisdom and applaud the way he used it on behalf of the weak and the vulnerable.

In that spirit, let me briefly touch on India’s achievements in an area that was so dear to Mr. Shastri’s heart: modernizing agriculture so as to build food security and change forever the fortunes of the rural poor. Let me then, while drawing important lessons from the past, look to the future, not only in India, but in a global context of complex food security challenges.

II. LOOKING BACK: ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS

"To the hungry," Gandhi once said, "God is bread". That sage assessment reminds us that the hungry are both physically and spiritually malnourished. The possible repercussions of this condition were vividly, if starkly, described in the sixties by Nobel laureate and CGIAR scientist Norman Borlaug who visited a group of Indian farmers in their fields and said to them: "If there is no more food, a volcano will erupt under the political leaders of this land."

Mr. Borlaug spoke at a time of growing concern in many circles that a Malthusian nightmare threatened much of the developing world, and particularly South Asia. For some, concern fueled a pessimism that soon turned to a certainty of doom. Paul Ehrlich’s often quoted comment summed up their viewpoint. He said:

"Some time between 1970 and 1985 the world will undergo vast famines -- hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death. That is, they will starve to death unless plague, thermonuclear war, or some other agent kills them first. The United States should announce that it will no longer ship food to countries such as India where dispassionate analysis indicates that the unbalance between food and population is hopeless."

Today, some thirty years later, I am proud to share with you the triumph of knowing that reality proved Mr. Ehrlich hopelessly wrong. India, through a concerted effort that represents an exemplary turnaround of national fortunes, overcame the crises that caused such predictions. By 1985, the closing year of Mr. Ehrlich’s prediction, famine, a wracking feature of the past, was just a part of history. And in November last year, Prime Minister Deve Gowda, reflecting the growing confidence of India’s agricultural sector, told the World Food Summit: "There have been periodical predictions of shortfalls in the world’s food production and, often, major disasters are predicted by agricultural pundits. I am a grassroots farmer and may I assure you that as a grower of food grains on my own land, I do not believe the prophets of doom."

The agricultural sector supports about 65 percent of the labor force, contributes almost 30 percent of GDP, and contributes substantially as well to the total value of the country’s exports. During the post-green revolution period, i.e. after 1967-68, the growth rate of agricultural production has consistently been around 2.8 percent annually.

An institutional assessment from the World Bank is optimistic about India’s agriculture. A recent examination of agricultural performance says that "between 1980 and 1996, agricultural growth has accelerated and spread to the eastern regions and rainfed areas, and real rural wages have improved. Together, this has contributed to an unprecedented decline in rural poverty, except during droughts and economic recession."

Consider these facts:

Cereal yields increased from 0.86 t/ha (1966) to 2.2 t (1996) - 156% increase or 5.2 percent per year,

India is the world’s second largest producer of rice, after China,

Paddy production rose from 46 mill t (1966) to 125 mill t (1996) - an increase of 172 percent or 5.7 percent annually,

Rice yields increased from 1.3 t/ha (1966) to 3 t (1996) - a 170 percent increase or 5.7 percent per year,

India is now the world’s second largest wheat producer, behind China but ahead of the US,

Wheat output rose from 10 mill to (1966) to 64 mill t (1996) - a 540 percent increase or 18 percent per year,

Wheat yields increased from 0.83 t/ha (1966) to 2.5 t (1996) - a 167 percent increase or 5.6 percent per year,

The output of pulses rose from 9.8 mill t (1966) to 15.4 mill t (1996) - a 57 percent increase or 1.9 percent per year,

Potato production rose from 4 mill t (1966) to 18 mill t (1996) -- yields rose from 8.5 t/ha (1966) to 16.5 t (1996) - a 94 per cent increase or 3.1 percent per year,

Agricultural land under irrigation increased from 25.9 million ha (1964) to 48.0 million ha (1994) or 85.3 percent,

Forest land increased from 61 mill ha (1964) to 68.5 mill ha (1994), or 12.4 percent over a period of 30 years,

Fuelwood and charcoal production doubled over the same period, and industrial

Cereals output in India has risen from 80 mill t (1966) to 221 mill t (1996) - an increase of 176 percent increase or 5.8 percent per year,

roundwood production tripled.

These achievements do not imply that agricultural development has reached its zenith in India, thereby eradicating poverty. Much has been done. Much remains to be done by way of revamping trade policy, reviewing subsidies, and targeting poverty reducing measures. What they do mean is that India has crossed the boundary from despair to hope - and beyond.

Confidence in India’s agriculture was not always so strong, as we know, and it is useful to remember that the seeds of achievement were actually sown at a time of seeming distress; the sixties. How was that possible? How did a situation close to despair change into one of promise? The nature of the problems encountered were a catalyst in themselves. They were so severe, so deeply entrenched, and so debilitating that they required responses which were both creative and far reaching. Anything less would have fulfilled the predictions of doom.

India’s leaders defined a set of goals and reached out to them single-mindedly. Five crops were chosen for improvement - rice, wheat, maize, sorghum, and pearl millet. Price supports were provided for rice and wheat. Specific targets were set up for the production and distribution of inputs. Administrative machinery was mobilized to give agricultural programs coherence and vigor. Floor prices were announced before sowing commenced, and mechanisms were established for implementing government policies including prices and the distribution of inputs. The private sector was fully engaged. So were external partners, for this was a time when development cooperation was considered a civilized responsibility not an odious burden.

In addition to political will, sound decision-making, effective policy implementation, and unity among many elements, a strong contribution was made by scientific research which created what are now widely known as "green revolution technologies." India’s scientists and their colleagues in the international agricultural research centers produced new technologies that were used to increase the productivity of the five crops selected for a special effort. The new technologies have their detractors and their concerns must be respected as the world moves into the next phase of agricultural development. The undeniable fact, however, is that application of the new technologies saved millions from starvation or death. For this, the credit goes to scientists and farmers.

India’s farmers have always been a powerful force. In 1932, for instance, the colonial administration placed a ban on the activities of Kisan Sabhas (peasant organizations) because their involvement in the freedom struggle was formidable. In the sixties and beyond, farmers applied those same creative energies to agricultural transformation. As former Minister of Agriculture C. Subramanian, the father of modern agriculture in India, puts it: "Indian scientists responded to the challenges in a magnificent way. More than that, the farmers were prepared to take risks, they were prepared to use new varieties. That is how the green revolution became a reality."

Farmers were the first scientists. They carried out the first experiments, asked themselves numerous questions and, through their answers, served as creative providers. So, however high we set our sights, we should never forget that in the distilled experience of farm women, men, and children reside wisdom that has to be integrated within the new science. If we fail to do so we will have to ask ourselves, as the British poet T.S. Eliot did:

Where is the wisdom we have lost in Knowledge"?

And where is the knowledge we have lost in information:

III. FACING NEW CHALLENGES

The "new" agriculture was not restricted to India. At the global level, one of the greatest achievements of this century has been the phenomenal increase of agricultural productivity through the application of science-based technologies. In Asia, the data is nothing short of stunning. Over the thirty years ending in 1991, rice production increased by 123 percent, largely through an increase in yields of some 88 percent. Wheat production rose by 338 percent in the same period, with yields increasing by 204 percent. Consumers gained over time from lower prices of basic foodstuffs made possible by increased supply. The poor benefited greatly because they spend a higher proportion of their resources on foodstuffs than no others.

In a report prepared for the World Food Summit, the World Bank pointed out that real progress was achieved in the past twenty five years in improving the condition of the world’s poor. For instance:

the proportion of the world’s population living in poverty has dropped,
average incomes per person have doubled,
real food prices have fallen by more than 50 percent,
average calorie supplies per person have risen by some 30 percent,
infant mortality has been reduced by half, and
average life expectancy has increased by ten years.

And yet, the sights and sounds of poverty are all around us. The paradox of our times is that both in the North and the South poverty and plenty co-exist. Women and men of goodwill in the North grapple continuously with the demeaning effects of homelessness, societal collapse, and the frustrations of an almost permanent underclass. The South faces problems so challenging as to frighten the faint-hearted.

As we move towards the new millennium and beyond, when the world’s population will be about 8.5 billion, 7 billion in developing countries, the world’s very poor will number one and a half billion. Some 70 percent of them will be women. At the dawn of the 21st century, India’s population will be some 1 billion. Within the next 30 years no less than 80 countries, 43 of them in Africa, will double their populations.

During the same period, urbanization and increased income in developing countries are likely to change dietary habits, with the demand for livestock and high value agricultural products increasing. This, in turn, will increase the demand for cereals and coarse grains to be used as animal feed, not only as food for people.

Simultaneously, current trends suggest that the world will continue to face serious environmental concerns such as soil degradation (water and wind erosion, loss of soil nutrients, salinization, and water logging), tropical deforestation, and loss of biodiversity unless corrective measures are taken.

India itself, despite its impressive advances on so many fronts, faces numerous

problems as well.

Every minute -- the population increases by 42 people,

Total population rose from 495 million (1965) to 936 million (1995) and is projected to increase to 1.32 billion in 2020,

The rural population rose from 402 million (1965) to 685 million (1995) of which 78 comprises the agricultural population,
Some 300 million live below poverty line; and India has the largest concentration of poor people,

Silent hunger is a menace, with child undernutrition still as high as 63 percent,

Infant mortality high stands at 70 per 1000 births,

About half the population lacks access to safe water,

Only 16 percent of the population has access to sanitation,

Over 141 million hectares are subject to water and wind erosion,

Over a million hectares are damaged as a result of shifting cultivation annually,

Some 40 million hectares are flood prone.

Every minute -- 48 children are born,

Such realities in India and across the world could very easily be interpreted as constituting, once again, a catastrophe scenario. Last year’s temporary increase of the price of wheat, and fears that yield increases of major cereals have reached a plateau, adds to the concerns. Indeed, catastrophe is an ever-present danger, if circumstances are not scientifically assessed and, as necessary, countered.

Agriculture is at the heart of any effective solution to this nexus of problems encompassing population growth, environmental destruction, poverty reduction, and food security. Over 70 percent of the world’s land and water are used for agriculture. Over 75 percent of employment in the poorest countries is based on agriculture. If we do not transform agriculture to be more productive, we will curtail food abundance, which is the basis of food security. If we do not transform agriculture to be sustainable, we will destroy natural resources, the foundation of productivity and human sustenance. If we do not transform it to benefit the poorest and focus especially on women, we will help to perpetuate the very inequities that should be destroyed.

IV. THE CHANGING PARADIGM OF SCIENCE

As we look to the future, therefore, we know that action on a broad front is required to meet the objectives of poverty reduction, food security, and natural resources management.

In the short-run, reducing hunger must focus at the household level with enabling actions by nations. Globally, only adequate supplies and food aid can help. In the medium-term, the emphasis must be more at the national and international levels, focusing on reducing poverty and generating sustained economic development for all. Central to that vision are concerted national and international efforts to generate appropriate agricultural technology to improve the productivity and profitability of millions of farmers in developing countries. In the long-term, global food supplies must increase in sustainable production systems to feed more than 8 billion people, and a fair trading system is vital.

India’s outstanding experience in the green revolution shows us that in the past, government policies compiled with good science and an effective extension service which took the results of science to the farmers were adequate to meet the challenges of the time - provided that the technology package was appropriate.

Today’s problems are more complex. Science can help us to meet them, but the mobilization of science has to be reshaped, as science itself changes. Science must be used in three crucial areas:

Defining the problem,
Identifying partnerships and the new role of all partners in the global agricultural research system, and
Making decisions on how science is practiced - bringing together all members of the "science family" together in a single constructive enterprise.

Getting the Facts Right

The world has seen a science explosion. The wonders of science and their potential for further improving the condition of the human family are all around us. We must put that potential to the best possible use, beginning with a concerted effort to define our problems accurately; to get the facts right.

So much of the debate among policymakers, advocacy groups, and in the media is based on partial figures and incomplete or inaccurate information. Sensible discussion and appropriate policies are thereby made elusive. What virtue is there in carrying out an impassioned debate on food production in China when the protagonists use vastly divergent figures of the acreage of Chinese land under cultivation on which the yield figures depend?

India was a pioneer in matching the requirements of agricultural development and information technology through its Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE). Now is the time to be bold again, and to ensure that new breakthroughs in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and computing will make it possible for more accurate figures to be obtained on the kinds of questions that determine policy. More importantly, such developments will enable the ecological site-specific data and the socioeconomic data to be mapped at the local to the supranational levels, offering for the first time the possibility of substantial relational databases being developed with all the advantages for analysis that such developments entail. Maintaining and making available proper databases thus becomes another major contribution that scientists can make to the better understanding of the issues and the monitoring and evaluation of trends by countless researchers and groups. Beyond using GIS/computing, databases, and scientific interpretation, the international scientific community can state problems accurately, define areas of uncertainty and risk, identify new technologies, and help set the boundaries of debate.

The debate will be wide ranging and through it will emerge an agenda for today and tomorrow. Let me review some of the issues that will have to be confronted.

Favored or less-favored areas

Traditional versus exotic crops

Time horizon choices

Environmental improvement versus yield maximization

The integration of traditional knowledge and new science

The search for integrated farming practices that reflect local specificity’s versus the search for new technologies with very broad applications

Preserving biodiversity

Greater use of biotechnology

The opportunities for producing transgenic varieties are endless. Plants and animals that use water more efficiently, grow in highly adverse conditions, resist pests and diseases, and use fewer inputs have enormous potential to contribute to the sustainability of agricultural production systems and are representative of the range of possibilities which may develop through biotechnology. Biotechnology also has great potential in livestock and fish production, and in the modification of biological control agents.

Genetically altered varieties, especially those that are sensitively responsive to the specifics of complex smallholder farming systems, can be introduced to less-favored areas offering undreamed of opportunities to the poor. However, the research agenda must also address areas of concern with biotechnology.

The correct balance has to be established on weighing the benefits against the risks of biotechnology. Not everything that is technically feasible is ethically desirable. The technology potential involves science and economics. The ethical issue has many complexities. We cannot accept hunger and poverty as the permanent legacy of the disadvantaged. We cannot accept the notion that deprivation should forever be imprinted on the genes of the poor and destitute - that misery is their inevitable or even karmic destiny - because of fears about the use of biotechnology. Both sets of issues need to be boldly confronted.

Getting the Roles Right

Science has created the basis of a new interconnectedness. And yet there is potential for dangerous divisions. Aspects of the application of intellectual property rights could lead to limitations on the free flow of germplasm, thus drastically curtailing agricultural development. The collaborative nature of science and its application run the risk of being transformed into a competitive race -- not by scientific or communications obstacles but by legal requirements.

Indeed, research today is subjected to dual pressure. On the one hand, it must take account of the diversity of natural and human environments and therefore come to terms with location-specific realities. It is equally influenced by globalization factors: the awakening of a planetary conscience against common challenges, the revolution of basic sciences, particularly in biology; the interconnection of communications networks; economic liberalization, and so on. The emergence of a "global system" is manifest.

However, in this area, as in others we must ensure that this "globalization" of research does not translate into a few powers dominating a world where the vast majority are relegated to facing the specter of environmental loss, and seeing the impact of continuing inequities on the poor, there can be no room for divisiveness in the agricultural research effort. "Public assets" and "private assets" each have their own logic. These must be clearly understood, and their differences as well as their complementarities respected.

We need a new paradigm of research. The real challenge is to ensure that all usable assets are deployed for the production of public goods. This principle applies to the protection of intellectual property and in the field of biological research. We need an overall system that promotes interaction to help each actor contribute to the best of its comparative advantages so that the whole is much more than the sum of the parts. When such a system is in place, the synergies in agricultural research will acquire their own momentum, providing more productive links among public and private actors, national and international agencies, rich and poor countries, and formal and informal sector institutions of the civil society.

Getting Partnerships Moving

To address all these issues, what should be the distribution of responsibilities among local, national, regional and international research? Should every country have a full-blown research system? What role should multinational firms play in the global research systems? What are truly public research goods--nationally and internationally? What level of public investment is required for the production of public goods? How can the strengths of the private sector be integrated with public endeavor?

These are difficult issues, but nobody said that development would be simple. Think of the Finance Minister of any small country in the South who, three weeks before Budget Day, has to choose between allocating money for an emergency program to clean out small irrigation reservoirs or an emergency program to build a network of rural dispensaries. The choices of development are rarely easy. But, just as the crises of the fifties and sixties in India brought forth effective responses, I am convinced that today’s challenges are also today’s opportunities. They are opportunities for building partnerships, creating and implementing effective policies, for acting in areas both directly and indirectly connected with food security issues, for reaching out to the weakest among us and helping them to begin their ascent from poverty.

We all recognize that the challenges of tomorrow will require the mobilization of the talents, resources and abilities of all the actors, from the public and the private sectors, local, national and international agencies, the private sector and the civil society. How does one bring them together? How does one find a non-bureaucratic forum to enable them to share ideas and help shape the agenda? To define new partnerships and work out new forms of collaboration? Indeed, steps to do just that have already been taken. A Global Forum, which took place in Washington last October, was the start of this dream of a common commitment by one and all for the better future of humanity and of our planet.

Clearly, the voice of the NARS and their regional fora must be central in helping shape the future programs of this new Global Forum. The single most important challenge facing this Global Forum is that of devising both the priorities of and the modalities for action. But such action must be guided by principles designed to create a truly participatory and inclusive system. Based on this, the emerging global system can have a shared vision in which the programs of each benefit from the successful work of the others. This will give substance to real research partnerships in the battles against poverty, hunger, environmental degradation, and inequity.

The CGIAR sees itself as an active participant in the further development of the global agricultural system, as CGIAR centers continue with the mission of carrying out cutting-edge research. Beyond the content of their work and the manner in which they design and carry out research programs with their partners, these centers of scientific excellence must act as dynamic catalysts, as platforms for the exchange of information and the development of true networks of scientists between the South and the North. In preparation for its deepening involvement in a partnership mode within global agricultural systems, the CGIAR undertook an 18-month program of renewal - which was launched in this city in May 1994. The program was completed on schedule in October of 1995. As a result the CGIAR is today a fully South-North enterprise, its participatory mechanisms have been greatly improved and the mode of operations of some centers have changed or are changing.

ICRISAT, headquartered near Hyderabad, is one such center. It is reducing the size of its staff, orienting itself much more than before to operating through partnership, and is sharply refocusing its research agenda. Utmost care is being taken to cushion the personal impact of the changes underway. Periods of change are hard, nevertheless, and I share the concerns of those who are personally affected. Commiseration is easier than hardship. Many hundred staff are affected; national and international. The CGIAR is profoundly concerned about the personal difficulties that are being experienced. I, personally, have appealed for more resources to prevent current developments, and wish that other courses could have been followed. Those affected will be cared for, to the fullest extent possible. Our thoughts are with them, and we hope that the adjustment process will soon be completed. The plus side of an otherwise negative situation is that programmatic and administrative changes now in progress at several CGIAR centers will enable them to be even more effective partners of national scientists than before. The NARS will have to undergo their own transformation, taking on new responsibilities, and working out effective distributions of tasks among themselves and other components of the global agricultural research system. Let us all do our bit to ensure that the changes will not only be made, but will be part of the new science paradigm.

Inspired and strengthened by past achievements we must face the future with hope, determination, and confidence - but not over-confidence which could be as damaging as complacency. We must be willing to acknowledge how formidable the challenges of today and tomorrow might be. And we must be ready to mobilize science and scientists to meet those challenges.

The effectiveness of science is no longer dependent only on the quality of scientific breakthroughs, but by the speed at which nations can embrace the change and incorporate the new. Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum, has said that "we are moving from a world in which the big eat the small to one in which the fast eat the slow." None of us wants to be destroyed because we are unable to absorb and use new science speedily. To hold our own, we must all transform ourselves into learning nations, leaving none behind in the process. The most skilled scientists and the poorest farmers must all be involved in this common enterprise. We need to transform society from the inside out, something like turning out a sock.

These are formidable challenges. They can be overcome if all of us who share the same concerns and strive for the same goals work in partnership and unity .... if we pool resources and combine forces to create a just future for today’s marginalized. We must be driven by a sense of moral outrage against the continuance of poverty and hunger. And we must mobilize a scientific dynamism that cares for the neglected, reaches out to the unreached, feeds the hungry, and empowers the weak.

What can India do? Very much. One out of every six persons on earth is Indian. India is a leader of the South, with the capacity to blaze trails that others will follow. Your success is the key to global success. The Indian agricultural research community is the pride and envy of the whole world. Indian scientists, supported by policymakers, can carefully select problems for solution in terms of their potential for impact. This will have to be done in such a way that a balance is created among basic, strategic, adaptive and applied research.

Sixty years ago, Jawaharlal Nehru said of India: "The promised land may be far from us, and we may have to march wearily through the deserts, but who will dare to crush the spirit of India which has found rebirth again and again after so many crucifixions." So it is with us today. Who will dare crush our spirit or thwart our purpose, if we are determined to persevere until success is ours?

Thank you.