©FAO/J. Koelen ©FAO/J. THE GREEN REVOLUTIONIN ASIA: Lessons For AFriCA Hira Jhamtani — 45 — CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD SYSTEMS RESILIENCE IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Contents INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................47 PRODUCTION INCREASE NOT SUSTAINABLE ..................................................................48 GREEN REVOLUTION LIMITS ...........................................................................................50 COHERENCE IN DEVELOPMENT POLICY KEY TO FOOD SECURITY .................................52 Environmental and natural resource management ........................................................................ 53 Industrial and other development policies ...................................................................................... 53 Social issues ........................................................................................................................................ 54 DIVERSE ALTERNATIVES EXIST ......................................................................................55 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................56 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................57 tables Table 1: Where are the hungry? ...............................................................................................47 Table 2: Who are the hungry? ..................................................................................................47 About the author Hira Jhamtani is a researcher on environment and development issues in Asia and Indonesia. She was a board member of the Indonesian Society for Social Transformation (INSIST) and is an associate of the Third World Network. — 46 — THE GREEN REVOLUTION IN ASIA: Lessons FOR AFriCA introduCtion Asia, the rice barn of the world, has often been cited as a “succesful” continent in implementing the Green Revolution, particularly in rice production. Some experts and bureaucrats have said that without the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, “Asia would have suffered from famine”. How true this is remains a question. In any case, yield increases, while certainly important, do not go to the heart of the problem. The real challenge facing the developing world is achieving food security at the national and household levels. The two tables below show that it is the food security situation that needs further scrutiny. Table 1 shows that there are about 500 million people in Asia (and the Pacific) still hungry. What is even more worrying is that most of the hungry people are in fact from farm households (400 million as in Table 2), who are supposedly the food producers. The fact that farm households are the most hungry must be a point of critical reflection about the current agriculture system. TABLE 1 Where are the hungry? REGION TOTAL (MILLIONS) India 214 Sub-Saharan Africa 198 Asia & Pacific 156 South America 56 China 135 Source: FAO (2003 from www.developmenteducation.ie) TABLE 2 Who are the hungry? REGION TOTAL (MILLIONS) Farm Households 400 Rural Landless 160 Urban Households 64 Herders, Fishers and Forest Dependents 56 Source: UN Hunger Task Force (2003 from www.developmenteducation.ie) — 47 — CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD SYSTEMS RESILIENCE IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA The Green Revolution package of high-yielding varieties (HYVs), irrigation and agrochemicals is often seen as mainly a technological intervention to boost food production. However, as experience has shown, the Green Revolution is also a socio-economic and political construct. It also has an environmental dimension as agriculture is mainly based on natural resources. Many valuable lessons can be drawn from the Green Revolution experience in Asia. Those lessons can hopefully help Africa to make strategic policy decisions before embarking on an agricultural revolution of any kind. In Asia, a growing number of farmers are turning back to non-chemical or less-chemical agriculture as the costs of the Green Revolution system have risen while yields have stagnated. This in itself is an issue that must be considered carefully for Africa. There is also a whole range of information and knowledge now on alternative systems of agriculture that are adapted from traditional local systems, as well as based on empirical and conventional scientific studies. ProduCtion IN Crease not sustainable The main achievement of the Green Revolution in Asia has been the increase in grain production. Taking the example of rice, production did increase, and many experts attributed that to HYV seeds and chemical inputs only. However, other factors were important such as subsidies for the inputs and development of new varieties, access to credit and markets, irrigation systems, government price support and infrastructure improvement (mainly roads and transport systems). What is also important is that the single rice crop system was changed to two or three monocroppings of rice, which also explained the increase in overall production. Area expansion contributed to nearly one-third of Asian rice output growth in the 1960s and one-fifth in the 1970s (Pingali and Rosegrant, 1994). The increase in production is, however, not sustainable over a long period. As early as 1976, a report from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) noted that the — 48 — THE GREEN REVOLUTION IN ASIA: Lessons FOR AFriCA growth rate in rice yields between 1963–67 and 1971–75 was less than 1.5 percent per annum for South and Southeast Asia as a whole and below one percent for several countries. And this was for irrigated (or wet) rice fields; there was no evidence of a major breakthrough in dry land agriculture (Morgan, 1978). Another study reported that rice yield growth in Asia declined sharply in the 1980s, from an annual growth rate of 2.6 percent in the 1970s to 1.5 percent during the period beginning in 1981 (Pingali and Rosegrant, 1994). Disregarding the discrepancy in figures, the conclusion is that the increase in yields is not sustainable. An interesting example is Indonesia. Real increase in production of up to 3.52 percent per annum was achieved only for ten years during 1979–1989. Since then, total rice production growth has declined to 1.04 percent per year with a productivity increase of only 0.05 percent per year (Swastika et al., 2002, cited in Jhamtani, 2008). Indonesia was acclaimed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) for attaining rice self-sufficiency in the 1980s but the country has had to import rice again since 1994. Indeed, farm-level evidence from the rice bowls of Asia indicates that intensive rice monoculture systems (as implemented through the Green Revolution) led to declining productivities of inputs over the long term (Pingali et al., 1997, cited in Lim, 2009). ­­­­­­­­The decline in yields, but increase in the price of inputs, has also had an adverse impact on the economic welfare of rural communities. This has led to an urban drift and the creation of increasing numbers of urban poor. The Indonesian experience with the Green Revolution indicates that it was focused on increasing rice production rather than farmers’ income and that the programme was not cost-efficient and required huge funding (Pribadi, 2001, cited in Jhamtani, 2008). Africa needs to take note of this. The issue is how to sustain productivity as well as farmers’ income, in a manner that is cost-efficient. — 49 — CLIMATE CHANGE AND FOOD SYSTEMS RESILIENCE IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Green revolution limits One of the most important features of the Green Revolution is the use of agrochemicals (fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides), a feature that was non-existent before then. Agrochemicals are used because High-yielding varieties (HYV) were constructed to be responsive to chemical fertilizers and were more susceptible to pest outbreaks. In developing countries, these chemicals are costly. And, over a few years, more chemicals have to be used to achieve the same yield. In Indonesia, the application of fertilizers in rice production between 1975 and 1990 rose from under 25 kg/ha to over 150 kg/ha (Fitzgerald-Moore and Parai, 1996, unpublished). Thus, the increase in yields is offset by the increase in cost associated with increased use of chemicals. In the Central Plains of Thailand, yield increased 6.5 percent but fertilizer use increased by 24 percent and pesticides by 53 percent. In West Java, Indonesia the 23 percent increase in yield was virtually cancelled out by 65 percent and 69 percent increases in fertilizers and pesticides respectively (Rosset et al., 2000, cited in Lim, 2009). Agrochemicals not only increase production costs but also have health and environmental impacts, whose costs have not been properly internalised in the calculation of yields and production costs under the Green Revolution system. For example, the costs associated with agrochemical pollution of water systems and soils have never been taken into account. Accidents, and even deaths, of farmers and agricultural labourers due to lack of knowledge on safe use of chemicals have also been underreported. A study showed that poisoning episodes occur largely during spraying, mixing, and diluting of pesticides or due to the use of malfunctioning or defective equipment among agricultural workers (Jeyaratnam, 1993). Most farmers are not well educated on this and not enough information has been given to them on