World Agriculture Vol.3 No.2 (Winter 2012)

Front

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Inside front

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editors World Agriculture Editorial Board

Editorial Assistants Dr Philip Taylor BSc, MSc, PhD. Ms Sofie Aldiss BSc. Michael J.C. Crouch BSc MSc (Res).

Rob Coleman BSc, MSc.

Published by Script Media, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS, UK

Patron Sir Crispin Tickell GCMG, KCVO Chairman Professor Sir Colin Spedding CBE, MSc, PhD, DSc, CBiol, Hon FSB, FRASE, FIHort, FRAgS, FRSA, Hon Assoc RCVS, Hon DSc (Reading).

Agriculturalist Deputy Chairman & Editor Dr David Frape BSc, PhD, PG Dip Agric, CBiol, FSB, FRCPath, RNutr Mammalian physiologist Email: editor@world-agriculture.net Assistant Editors Robert Cook (UK), BSc, CBiol, FSB. Plant pathologist and agronomist Dr Ben Aldiss (UK) BSc, PhD, CBiol, MSB, FRES, QTS. Ecologist, entomologist and educationalist Members of the Editorial Board Professor Pramod Kumar Aggarwal (India) BSc, MSc, PhD (India), PhD (Netherlands), FNAAS (India), FNASc. Crop ecologist Professor Phil Brookes (UK) BSc, PhD, DSc. Soil microbial ecologist Professor Andrew Challinor (UK) BSc, PhD. Agricultural meteorologist Professor Peter Gregory (UK) BSc, PhD, CBiol, FSB, FRASE. Soil Scientist Professor J. Perry Gustafson (USA) BSc, MS, PhD. Plant geneticist Professor Sir Brian Heap (UK) CBE, BSc, MA, PhD, ScD, FSB, FRSC, FRAgS, FRS. Animal physiologist Professor Paul Jarvis (UK) FRS, FRSE, FRSwedish Soc. Agric. & Forestry.

Silviculturalist Professor Glen M. MacDonald (USA) BA, MSc, PhD. Geographer Professor Sir John Marsh (UK) CBE, MA, PG Dip Ag Econ, CBiol, FSB, FRASE, FRAgS (UK).

Agricultural economist Professor Ian McConnell (UK) BVMS, MRVS, MA, PhD, FRCPath, FRSE. Animal immunologist Professor Denis J Murphy (UK) BA, DPhil.

Crop biotechnologist Dr Christie Peacock (UK) BSc, PhD, FRSA, FRAgS, Hon. DSc, FSB. Tropical agriculturalist Professor RH Richards (UK) CBE, MA, Vet MB, PhD, CBiol, FSB., FRSM, MRCVS, FRAgS (UK).

Aquaculturalist Professor Neil C. Turner (Australia) FTSE, FAIAST, FNAAS (India), BSc, PhD, DSc. Crop physiologist Dr Roger Turner (UK) BSc, PhD. Plant physiologist and Agronomist Professor John Snape (UK) BSc, PhD. Crop geneticist Advisor to the board Dr John Bingham (UK) CBE, FRS, FRASE, ScD. Crop geneticist

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looking ahead

World Agriculture: potential future articles Jonathan Shepherd Aquaculture, 2. – Are the criticisms justified?

Professor Wallace Cowling Revitalising plant breeding through genetics and genomics.

Dr Matthew Gilliham, Richard James, Mark Tester, Michael Gilbert, Stuart Roy The economic and social benefits of introducing and breeding for salt tolerant traits in crops.

An area of dry saline soil in Kazakhstan.

Dr A. Bationo African soils, their productivity and profitability of fertilizer use.

Penelope Bebeli Genetic pollution of landraces.

Dr Michael Turner Seed policies in guiding seed sector development in the ‘post project era’.

Dr Helen Wallace What role for GM crops in world agriculture?

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contents

In this Issue ...

Editorials: Whither Technology.

5 Robert Cook

Economics of GM crops in developing and developed economies.

6-7 Professor Sir John Marsh Targeting good agricultural advice to where it is really needed.

8 Professor Denis Murphy Why is it still impossible to hold a worthwhile debate over the criticisms of biotechnology in agriculture?

9-10 David Frape

Scientific: Aquaculture: are the criticisms justified? Feeding fish to fish.

11-18 Dr Jonathan Shepherd

Economic & Social: GM crops, developing countries and food security.

19-22 Dr Francisco José Areal, Dr Paura Riesgo and Dr Emilio Rodriguez-Cerezo Land degradation and the rural poor.

23-28 Professor Edward B. Barbier

Uganda Agrochemical dealers’ practises and interactions with farmers.

29-33 Julien Lamontagne-Godwin, P. Taylor

Comment & Opinion: The global environmental and economic impact of biotech crops 1996-2010.

34-39 Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot

Instructions to contributors

40-41

Potential future articles

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World Agriculture Editor given prestigious Chinese Award Publisher’s Disclaimer No responsibility is assumed by the Publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Although all advertising material is expected to conform to ethical standards, inclusion in this publication does not constitute a guarantee, or endorsement of the quality or value of such product by the Publisher, or of the claims made by the manufacturer.

WINTHROP Professor Neil Turner, from The University of Western Australia's Institute of Agriculture was awarded the People's Republic of China's highest award for "foreign experts who have made outstanding contributions to the country's economic and social progress".

Professor Turner was given this Friendship

Award by the Chinese central government for his contribution to the economic and social development of China.

Professor Turner and his wife were flown to Beijing to be thanked personally by Premier Wen Jiaboa, to attend the National Banquet in the Great Hall of the People (along with 1800 others) and to be

presented with the award, also in the Great Hall of the People. There are 50 Friendship Awards given annually – this year the awardees were from 22 countries and in fields from medicine to space science to carpet manufacture. 529,000 foreign experts worked in China in 2011, so to be selected was a great honour.

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World Agriculture: A peer-reviewed, scientific review journal directed towards opinion formers, decision makers, policy makers and farmers

objectives and functions of the Journal The Journal will publish articles giving clear, unbiased and factual accounts of development in, or affecting, world agriculture. Articles will interpret the influence of related subjects (including climate, forestry, fisheries and human population, economics, transmissible disease, ecology) on these developments. Fully referenced, and reviewed, articles by scientists, economists and technologists will be included with editorial comment. Furthermore, a section for “Opinion & Comment” allows skilled individuals with considerable experience to express views with a rational basis that are argued logically.

References to papers that have been subject to peer-review will not be mandatory for this section. From time to time the Editor will invite individuals to prepare articles on important subjects of topical and international concern for publication in the Journal.

Articles will be independently refereed. Each article must create interest in the reader, pose a challenge to conventional thought and create discussion. Each will: 1) Explain likely consequences of the directions that policy, or development, is taking. This will include interactive effects of climate change, population growth and distribution, economic and social factors, food supplies, transmissible disease evolution, oceanic changes and forest cover. Opinion, in the “Opinion & Comment” Section must be based on sound deductions and indicated as such. Thus, an important objective is to assist decision-makers and to influence policies and methods that ensure development is evidence-based and proceeds in a more “sustainable” way. Without a clear understanding of the economic causes of the different rates of agricultural development in developing and developed countries and of migration rates between continents rational policies may not be developed. Hence, the role of economics must be understood and contribute an important part in the discussion of all subjects.

2) Provide independent and objective guidance to encourage the adoption of technical innovations and new knowledge.

3) Discourage false short-sighted policies and loose terminology, e.g. “organic”, “genetically modified”, “basic”, “sustainable”, “progress” and encourage informed comment on policies of governments and NGOs. 4) Indicate the essential role of wild-life and climate, not only in the context of agricultural and forestry development, but by maintaining environmental balance, to ensure the sustenance and enjoyment of all.

5) Summarise specific issues and draw objective conclusions concerning the way agriculture should develop and respond in the location/region of each enterprise, to evolving factors that inevitably affect development.

6) Promote expertise, for advising on world agricultural development and related subjects.

7) Allow interested readers to comment by “Letters to the Editor” and by “Opinion & Comment” columns.

8) Provide book and report reviews of selected works of major significance.

9) To include a wide range of commercial advertisements and personal advertisements from advisors and consultant groups.

Near drought conditions challenge spring soybean crops. (Glycine max)

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editorials

Whither technology Robert Cook

T

he debate about the potential benefits and public acceptance of biotechnology in agriculture continues unabated.

The debate seems to have clear polarisations, irrespective of evidence, no matter how robust. There are about 1 500 Mha of land worldwide devoted to crop production and about 10% is now allocated to crops with traits derived by various genetic techniques.

As a paper in this issue identifies, most of these are the primary food and commodity crops, soybeans, maize, cotton and canola (or oilseed rape as Europeans know it) and most are grown in the Americas.

The technology, however, is now widely adopted in all continents except Europe, where production is restricted to insect resistant maize mainly in Spain and Portugal.

Scientific knowledge advances by debate based on evidence and opinion can swing widely as information on any particular topic accumulates.

This is a difficult concept to communicate to the general public, who find conflicting reports confusing.

Indeed, they often have the unintended effect of destroying public confidence in science as well as researchers.

This effect is frequently exacerbated by the media, much of which has a primary focus of raising revenue, usually most effectively achieved by sensationalising results, whether valid, or not, to achieve impact.

There is a further complication which is difficult to overcome. The human decision making process frequently develops an unconscious

bias which can make the assessment of evidence less rational than is desirable.

Such unintentional processes can affect the way we all present information and discuss the significance of evidence.

As scientists we like to believe that we are not influenced by such factors or their unintended consequences.

Society and the politics of decision making may be less resistant to these influences, particularly as those whose role is to communicate information are more skilled in presenting facts.

The role of journalists, therefore, becomes paramount; they need to be skilled not only in presenting facts for decision making, but also in assessing the evidence on which they base their articles.

These interactions are highly important when applied to agriculture and advances in relevant technologies.

This is especially important in the case of the so-called GM crops.

Although these are widely accepted in most parts of the world, except in Europe, where there is significant opposition.

This seems to have three primary concerns - risks to human health, risks to wildlife and belief that companies which develop the technology are not only large and global, but that they also make a profit, as though that in itself is immoral and renders the technology undesirable.

This often ignores other elements of the debate on crop traits. Why for example is golden rice and vitamin A still so widely condemned, when a deficiency, associated with blindness and other abnormalities occurs in the

developing world?

This may be an example of the fact that advanced cultures do not suffer from a scarcity of food, and are less likely to do so for some time, whereas for many developing countries the technologies are critical to their welfare and will be increasingly so in future.

Recent publicity applied to a study of rats fed with GM maize and claiming to show serious health risks, provides an interesting example of the problem.

Not only was this just one study, when there is a multitude of references showing no adverse effects, but serious questions of methodology and analysis have caused several national and international scientific, health and food institutes to identify clearly that the work is suspect and unreliable. Despite this, the work is widely promoted as a reason the technology should be repudiated; evidence to the contrary is ignored by the media.

Likewise, the evidence that herbicide and insect tolerance reduce pesticide use and carbon dioxide emissions is also ignored. Herein lies the problem.

In order to improve the quality of decision making, as the world faces an impending food production crisis over the next few years, we need to ensure that policy makers can understand and act on good quality well presented evidence.

However, they also need to lead public opinion. It follows, therefore, that those whose job is to communicate germane information need to be especially vigilant about understanding the facts and providing clear unambiguous interpretations.

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editorials

Economics of GM crops in developing and developed economies Professor Sir John Marsh

T

his journal exists because the world community faces a growing challenge to increase food supply at a rate that matches the demands of a growing and richer population. Three articles in this edition of World Agriculture address important aspects of this problem.

Two deal with the role of biotechnology in increasing productivity whilst protecting the environment; the third demonstrates how increased population pressure leads to the degradation of fragile farming areas.

Areal and colleagues use the techniques of Bayesian analysis to explore the evidence from published studies comparing the performance of GM and conventional crops. A variety of GM induced characteristics are involved. These include resistance to pests and diseases and resistance to some herbicides. They can bring both agronomic and economic benefits, including higher yields and reduced use of crop production chemicals.

They conclude that, overall, GM crops have outperformed conventional crops.

A Brassica crop in China.

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Critics have sometimes complained that biotechnology benefits farmers in rich countries but does not help farmers in low income countries where the need for more production is most critical. The authors conclude that the evidence suggests that developing countries that have adopted GM technology have significantly enhanced their food security. Benefits arise not only for the innovating farmers but, as businesses that support farmers up and downstream expand, rural economies are stimulated.

They recognise that poor farmers who are unable to use the new technology may be disadvantaged.

The solution proposed is income redistribution. This may be too facile.

The cost and complexity of redistributing incomes is formidable even in rich countries with sophisticated public services. It rises disproportionately when the amounts to be transferred are small and where corruption is endemic.

Brooks and Barfoot explore the environmental and economic impacts of GM crops, basing their work on the published scientific literature. They

note the substantial area of GM canola, corn, cotton and soyabean now planted. They show that benefits arise in terms of both the environment and the economy.

The study focuses on two types of environmental impact, agronomic effects and greenhouse gas emissions.

Their approach makes use of the environmental impact quotient developed by Kovach and colleagues in 1992 to measure environmental effects. This uses some of the key data relating to toxicity and environmental exposure of individual products, as they impact on farm workers, consumers and ecology. This is a much richer approach than simply comparing changes in volume of active ingredient applied.

The paper reports a decline in the use of both herbicides and insecticides. It also notes that, in some places, the development of herbicide resistant weeds has become a problem. The authors point out that this is also a problem with conventional crops where weeds evolve to resist existing crop protection treatments.

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editorials To combat growing resistance a more sophisticated management programme is needed that uses herbicides with different modes of action as well as varying cultivation systems.

Greenhouse gas emissions are reduced as a result of using less fuel and leaving more carbon sequestered in the soil, as a result of low till and no till methods of cultivation. They illustrate these gains in terms of the number of cars it would be necessary to take off the road to achieve an equal reduction in the release of CO2.

Their conclusions are impressive, even though the gain in sequestered soil carbon is small.

GM crops increase farmers’ incomes both by raising revenue and reducing costs. Yields generally rise and the crop is of better quality. Costs fall because of reduced cultivation, despite higher prices for GM seed. The authors compare, for each of the main GM traits, the performance of conventional and GM crops. They calculate substantial benefits from using GM technology claiming an overall increase of 6.5% in the value of the four major GM crops in 2010.

These calculations are essentially of changes in gross margin. They do not take into account any impact on overhead costs. In large scale such costs play an important part in determining overall profitability and the incentive to invest.

From a public policy perspective it is not only the impact on farmers’ incomes that matters but the net value

of the technology to society. For such purpose we need to know more about issues such as the impacts on the rural infrastructure, the external consequences for other business and tax receipts and the effect on a wider range of environmental services, such as amenity and the management of catchment areas. This is not a criticism of the authors but an invitation for more work on the wider aspects of GM technology.

The paper by Barbier (pp. 23-28) draws attention to land degradation that occurs as the pressure of low income and growing numbers force poor farmers to use land that is much more fragile. Where such land is farmed by traditional techniques there is evidence of reduced land quality and erosion.

The problem is serious and urgent because of the scale of agriculture in the economies of poor countries. In broad terms 80% of the labour force is engaged in farming, 40% of GDP and most exports arise from agriculture.

Since 1950 the population living in these fragile areas has doubled. They are characterised by remoteness, poor access to markets and low incomes.

The attempt to provide sufficient food for families to eat leads to the degradation not only of land but also of water resources.

The author argues that the only way to reduce this pressure is to enable farmers and their families to earn more income off the farm. Increased income from farming is not enough.

What is needed is assured income from sources that do not increase the

pressure on land. There is, however, some evidence that, when non-farm income rises some farmers may neglect their farms and fail to ensure soil conservation.

He proposes a radical shift in policy in order to generate a more sustainable system of farming in fragile areas. The policy agenda includes direct payments to farmers for ecosystem services, investment to improve farm earnings, improved access to markets and investments in transport that will enlarge the area within which farming families can find work off their holdings.

Barbier’s critical message is that the things poor farmers are forced to do today in order to survive are likely to make their long term survival impossible. His study forces us to realise that solutions to food production problems require responses that stimulate the economies of rural communities as a whole. The opportunities for agricultural improvement and environmental protection depend critically on the political and economic context within which farmers work. His policy proposals are in line with current thinking about ‘agricultural policy’ in developed countries. We should not underestimate the difficulty and cost involved in making such policies work.

This emphasises the urgent need to refocus much existing policy, employing instruments that both relieve poverty in fragile rural areas and maintain a sustainable use of environmental resources.

The Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, North Kenya, Africa.

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editorials

Targeting good agricultural advice to where it is really needed Professor Denis Murphy ne of the most serious problems facing agriculture today is to ensure that adequate nutrition is provided to people around the world. In many developing countries, this difficulty is compounded by factors such as rising populations, environmental degradation, resource depletion, climatic variability, and by increasing volatility in the prices of food and many essential agricultural inputs.

farming practices that can result in land degradation and poverty traps. A key challenge facing policymakers is to address the various ways in which such rural communities become isolated from mainstream commerce and communication. One example of such isolation is a lack of access to good quality advice and training in farming practices of the sort that was traditionally provided by national extension services.

After a brief respite in the late 20th century, the number of people experiencing the kind of serious poverty that is often associated with food shortages, is now on the rise again. In 2012, the FAO estimated that 870 million people could be classified as food-insecure with this figure projected to rise in the future.

How can we respond to this challenge confronting some of the most vulnerable people on the planet? Two papers in this issue of World Agriculture make useful contributions to this debate in two different but interconnected areas, namely targeting the rural poor in fragile and remote areas and the role of the private sector in providing advice on seed and inputs to African farmers.

Lamontagne-Godwin et al. (pp. 2934) address the topic of advice for farmers by examining the role of small-scale private sector seed and agrochemical retailers in advising farmers in Uganda. Why are these relatively unqualified middlemen involved in giving technical advice to farmers and thereby influencing crop yields and food security? Surely such advice is normally provided by the State in the form of extension services staffed by well-trained professional officers? Sadly, this is no longer the case in much of the world

O

Those regions that are most at risk from food insecurity tend also be relatively poor and often have marginal or degraded farming systems. Typically farmers in such regions missed out from many, or all, of the benefits of the Green Revolution that brought such immense yield gains in the 1970s and 1980s to mainstream cereal growers in many parts of Asia and the Americas.

The review article by Barbier (pp.

23-28) details the spiral of decline that confronts many of the rural poor as they are forced into increasingly unsustainable and unproductive

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In many parts of East Africa, and indeed in much of the rest of the world (including developed countries), public sector extension services have been dramatically reduced in recent decades. As with many other aspects of agricultural R&D spending, extension services have suffered budget cuts and staff reductions.

In some cases in Africa, even though staff levels have sometimes been maintained, shortsighted economy drives have seen radical cuts in vehicle and fuel allowances that make it impossible for officers to travel to farms, especially in remote areas where the need for advice is often the most acute. In many developing countries, a highly effective Training and Visit system was introduced by the World Bank in the 1970s and 80s

to underpin the Green Revolution by merging national extension bodies into a single service in each country.

However, many of these single agencies collapsed when funding was withdrawn in the 1990s.

While in a few cases there has been a commendable increase in bottom-up approaches, these are often linked to short-term projects funded by external donors such as NGOs. They, therefore, tend not to have strong linkages to central governments and can be lacking in strategic long-term objectives.

As a result, in countries such as Uganda, we have the kind of unsatisfactory scenario outlined by Lamontagne-Godwin et al. where for many farmers the national public sector extension services have all but disappeared. In their place a largely ad hoc group of relatively unskilled and untrained seed and agrochemical retailers appear to be the primary source of advice for many farmers.

In such cases, it is probably too late to turn the clock back and reinvent the 1970s model of comprehensive national extension services, especially given the economic constraints being experienced by many developing countries. However, it should be possible to use any remaining extension personnel in targeted programmes to improve the training of these retailers, and perhaps to establish other meaningful publicprivate partnerships to ensure that the poorest farmers get useful, unbiased advice within their communities on a regular basis.

This is only one small linkage in the long and complex chain from lab to farm to fork but if it is broken, the rural poor are even less likely to better themselves and the environment in which they live.

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editorials

Why is it still impossible to hold a worthwhile debate over the criticisms of biotechnology in agriculture?

David Frape

T

here are many assertions made, and scientific conclusions drawn, about how agriculture, including fish farming, horticulture and forestry, should develop over the next half century. The purpose of this development must be to provide adequate food for an increasing population without increasing, and if possible, decreasing, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and without decreasing biodiversity. A major function of this Journal is to make an independent assessment of reliable scientific and economic evidence presented in a rational and objective way concerning these issues, whereas assertions are of little value without the backing of reliable evidence for their suppot.

Reliable scientific research has led to the production of many novel chemicals and genetically relevant crop varieties that have allowed the adoption of cultivation methods which save fuel and time and decrease costs of production, so that GHG production is also reduced. These systems, as stated elsewhere here (Areal et al pp.19-22); Brookes & Barfoot (pp. 35-40), have been adopted by millions of farmers on millions of ha of land throughout the world without apparent interference with health and well-being.

Nevertheless, their safety must be assured in comparison with the risks attached to continuing with traditional methods as populations increase and climates change.

Many technological developments have led to adverse criticism in western cultures by individuals and organisations, viewed at a distance “sitting in cosy arm chairs” of the wellnourished west. This is not to say there could be long term, chronic, adverse consequences of some of these

developments that will be worse than the consequences for the systems they replace. Such adverse effects, if any exist, must be detected and the systems modified so that they are not transferred to general practice.

Has there been conclusive evidence, or even preliminary but sound evidence, for major adverse consequences over periods of up to 15 years to justify the criticisms of glyphosate, or of the recent genetic modification of maize? Our problem in assessing major adverse evidence is that, to our knowledge, none of any consequence has been published in peer-reviewed journals, except for a recent publication by French scientists (Séralini, G.-E. et al., 2012). Yet this paper has received damning criticism from the official EU watchdog (BfROpinion 037/2012, 1st October, 2012). The French scientists state that the adverse effects they observed could have been caused by hormonal effects of Roundup and by specific constituents of the genetically modified maize. The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has evaluated the study in terms of its relevance for the evaluation of the health risk of genetically modified glyphosatetolerant maize NK603 and for the evaluation of the health risk of the glyphosate-containing formulation. On the basis of the French publication, the BfR has concluded that the authors’ main statements are not sufficiently corroborated by experimental evidence, owing to deficiencies in the study design and in the presentation and interpretation of the study results.

Therefore, the main conclusions of the authors are not supported by the presented incomplete data. The study does not comply with internationally recognised standards for long-term carcinogenicity studies. The rat strain

used shows a relatively high spontaneous tumour rate, especially for mammary and pituitary tumours, and the number of animals used was too small and insufficient for assessing the claimed differences between the test groups and the control group.

The authors’ hypothesis that the observed effects could result from adverse effects on the endocrine system is not sufficiently supported by the data presented. Furthermore, the BfR criticises that the glyphosate dose administered was not determined in the studies with the glyphosatecontaining plant protection product Roundup.

In summary the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment is of the opinion that the experimental data do not support the main statements in the publication. Further, due to shortcomings in the study design as well as in the presentation and interpretation of the data, relevant conclusions drawn by the authors are not comprehensible.

Our additional criticisms of the study are based on the evidence available to us: 1) There were only10 rats per treatment group; but for the measurement of non-monotonic responses of tumours there should be a minimum of 50 per treatment group. We understand that half the controls also presented with tumours.

2) The statistical analysis was inappropriate and inadequate. Also if the rats were not caged individually, but in groups the experimental unit would be the cage and not the rat and if any of the statistical analyses were carried out with the animal as the experimental unit that analysis would be invalid.

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editorials 3) Feed intake was ad libitum and apparently not measured and so the dose was apparently unknown.

Whereas, the rats should have been fed individually a defined amount daily. It is well established in both rats (1) and in women after menopause (2) that breast cancer (especially that of oestrogen receptor negative type) is correlated with obesity and with glycaemic load in French studies (3) and with glycaemic index in Danish studies (4). These effects in rats would be related to feed intake and if more was consumed by the experimental groups than by the control groups, this fact alone could account for the earlier deaths of the rats given glyphosate-tolerant NK603 maize. So the effects attributed to the experimental maize would be accounted for, entirely, by differences between groups in feed consumption and not by any direct relation between genetic manipulation on tumour growth.

4)The maize used was not tested for the presence of mycotoxins frequently found in maize: e.g. zearalenone and aflatoxin, that is a cause (author’s evidence) of hepatic cancer in both rats and in humans world-wide, and fumonisins, produced by the mould, Fusarium moniliforme (fumonisin B1 has a world-wide distribution and is present in a majority of maize samples from 0.4-3.5 mg/kg) (5). At higher concentrations it causes leukoencephalomalacia in horses and cancer (mainly of the throat) in humans (author’s evidence). A 30 day study in female rats showed it produced severe renal damage (6) and over 2 years it is a hepatocarcinogen in male rats (7). Contrary to the inference indicated in the French paper the evidence is that GM Bt crops, in particular, have decreased the incidence of moulds and mycotoxin presence, especially in products of those crops derived from developing

References

1) Fuchs,G.J., Chan Hee Jo, KieberEmmons, T. & Korourian S.(2005) Mammary tumor development in female zucker rats, Breast Cancer Research, 7, No 5, :pp. R627R633.

2)Lorincz, A.M. & Sukumar, S.(2006) Molecular links between obesity and breast cancer Endocrine-Related Cancer, 13, 279292.

3) Lajous, M., Boutron-Ruault, M.C.,Fabre, A., Clavel-Chapelon, F., Romieu, I., (2008) Carbohydrate intake, glycemic index, glycemic load and risk of post-menopausal breast cancer in a prospec-

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GM Maize

countries. It is unfortunate that the French scientists presented their preliminary data from this inadequate experiment, as if those data provided reliable evidence. The data are at variance with all other reports, and although that is no reason of itself not to publish, it is a reason to question one’s evidence to determine whether there are alternative explanations for it. In its present state the French report will provide no enlightenment on this topical and important subject. Yet it may stimulate other groups of scientists to carry out further two year studies with the same and different rat strains together with methods of measuring other potential long term effects, including those on biodiversity and GHG production. In the

meantime those individuals and organisations highly critical of scientific developments in agriculture, but with access to the popular media, will use these French data to further give concern and confusion of thought to the general public. World Agriculture looks forward to the receipt of reliable evidence on this important subject. We appreciate that many noble and legitimate groups opposed to the innovations discussed do, in fact, have the same objectives as many supporting the developments stated in the first paragraph above. It is a great pity that there are also “bigots in the pot” so that the general public receives mixed messages on this important subject.

tive study of French women. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 87, 1384-91.

4) Nielson, T.G., Olsen,A., Christensen, J., Overad, K., Tjonneland, A. Dietary carbohydrate intake is not associated with the breast cancer incidence rate ratio in postmeopausal Danish women. Journal of Nutrition, 135, 124-8.

5) Bryden, W.L., Shanks, G.L., Ravindran, G., Summerell, B.A. & Burgess, L.W. (1998) Mycotoxin contamination of Australian pastures and feedstuffs; and occurrence of Fusarium moniliforme and fumonisins in Australian maize in relation to animal disease.

In: Toxic plants and other natural toxicants

(eds, T. Garland & A.C. Barr), CABI, Wallingford, U.K., pp. 464-8 and 474-8.

6) Morsy FA, Badawy MA, Farrag AR. (2006) The protective effect of melatonin against fumonisin-induced renal damage in rats. International Journal of Toxicology, 25, 6,:523-9.

7) Gelderblom, W.C., Abel,S., Smuts, C.M., Marnewick,J., Marasas, W.F., Lemmer, E.R., and Ramljak,. D. (2001) Fumonisin-induced hepatocarcinogenesis: mechanisms related to cancer initiation and promotion.

Environmental Health Perspectives, 109 (Suppl 2), 291–300.

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Aquaculture: are the criticisms justified? Feeding fish to fish Jonathan Shepherd,18 Clarence Road, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 3NL Summary Aquaculture is a fast-growing sector of livestock production, but has attracted criticism owing to the practice of using marine ingredients as feed, usually in the form of fishmeal and fish oil. After placing so-called production of ‘fed’ aquaculture within the global supply context of capture fisheries and aquaculture, the author lists the objections made against feeding fish to fish. This is followed by a survey of the current trends in the production of fishmeal and fish oil from raw materials of marine origin and of the changing pattern of inclusion in aquaculture feeds, as well as their use in land animal feeds and human nutritional products. The management of so-called ‘reduction’ fisheries (for fish not used for direct human consumption) is discussed, as is the use of process trimmings and fishery by-products to make fishmeal, together with the increasing effort to utilise, for human consumption, fish that would previously have been used for reduction. Particular attention is paid to the substitution of marine feed ingredients by vegetable proteins and oils and by recycled land animal products in aquaculture diets.

A global input and output analysis indicates that there is a substantial net production of fish owing to use of marine ingredients for aquaculture feed and that continuing future growth of aquaculture is unlikely to threaten stocks of wild fish currently used for reduction. This counters a principal criticism of using marine ingredients. However, areas of potential concern are recognised, especially the use of low value ‘trash fish’ in South East Asia as direct wet feed for aquaculture; also the availability of long chain omega-3 marine oils for aquaculture owing to the growth in human nutritional supplements. It is concluded that future growth of fed aquaculture will be associated with proportionately greater use of land animal and plant proteins, oils and carbohydrate sources, and with a continuing decline in dependence on marine ingredients.

Keywords: Aquaculture, substitution, by-products, sustainability, pelagic, reduction, forage, fishmeal, fish oil.

Glossary Dioxins and dioxin-like compounds are by-products of various industrial processes and regarded as highly toxic compounds that are persistent organic environmental pollutants El Niño is a warming of the surface water of the eastern or central Pacific Ocean which usually occurs every 4 to 12 years causing unusual weather patterns and affecting marine fish stocks The fishmeal trap is a term denoting the concern that increased demand for feed by aquaculture will increase fishing pressure on wild stocks and, therefore, threaten the sustainability of

the associated capture fisheries.

Fed aquaculture and Non-fed aquaculture are those branches of aquaculture which depend respectively either on supplemental feeding, which may include formulated diets, or a reliance on naturally supplied feed, which may be encouraged by adding fertilizers to the water.

Frames are filleted fish skeletons with the heads and guts intact.

A nutraceutical is a food or nutritional product that provides human health and medical benefits.

Pelagic fish are those which live near the surface or in the water column of seas or lakes, but not on the bottom.

A prion is an infectious agent composed of protein in a mis-folded form, including the causative agent of Mad Cow Disease (Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE).

A reduction fishery is a fishery that ‘reduces’ its catch to fishmeal and fish oil (i.e. not for direct human consumption); also known as a ‘Feed’ fishery or a ‘Forage’ fishery.

Trash fish are low value fish having little or no market value as human food but sometimes used as a mincedup raw wet feed for aquaculture.

The trophic level of an organism is the position it occupies in a food chain.

Abbreviations FAO Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations; OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; FIFO when used about aquaculture is the ratio of (wild-caught) Fish in, to (farmed) Fish out and refers to the input of fish materials as feed ingredients compared to the resulting output of farmed fish; IFFO-RS Global Standard and Certification Programme for the Responsible Supply of Fishmeal and Fish Oil (developed by the International Fishmeal and Fish Oil Organisation); NGO non-governmental organisation; PCBs polychlorinated biphenyls, - a family of synthetic organic chemicals also known as chlorinated hydrocarbons.

Introduction

A

quaculture is the farming of aquatic plants and animals; it has grown at an annual average rate of 5.8% by tonnage volume in the last decade, but the OECD anticipates

a slowing down to 2.4% annually during the period 2012 – 20211. In contrast to this growth in aquaculture, global fisheries production has now levelled off. As illustrated in Fig. 1, FAO reports that in 2010 capture fisheries and aquaculture supplied the world

with about 148 million tonnes of fish (with a total value of USD 217.5 billion), of which about 128 million tonnes was utilised directly as human food; preliminary data for 2011 indicate increased production of 154 million tonnes, of which 131 million

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scientific sustainability of the capture fisheries involved. After initially listing these and other criticisms, the relevant aspects of feeding fish to fish will be described in order to enable a more detailed assessment of their validity both now and for the future.

The criticisms of feeding fish to fish

Figure 1. World capture fisheries and aquaculture production, 19502010 (FAO 2012a) (2).

Figure 2. World aquaculture production of non-fed and fed species, 1980-2010 (FAO 2012a) (2). tonnes was destined as food. In 2010 global production of farmed food fish was 59.9 million tonnes, of which an estimated 67% were fed, instead of relying on natural productivity often boosted by fertilization of the rearing pond2. Fig. 2 shows how the production of this so-called ‘fed’ aquaculture has developed, and is eclipsing non-fed aquaculture, and the main species groups involved in each.

To a varying extent, depending on species, fed aquaculture receives marine ingredients as a dietary component usually by means of fishmeal and fish oil incorporated during feed manufacture. These marine ingredients are manufactured by the fishmeal industry using either rendered whole fish – mainly small pelagic species, such as Peruvian anchovy, caught by means of targeted ‘reduction’ fisheries (also known as ‘forage’ or ‘feed’ fisheries), or

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alternatively rendered from byproducts of processing captured or farmed fish for human consumption (i.e. offals, off-cuts, frames, and trimmings). The fresh raw materials are then subjected to cooking, pressing, drying and milling to produce the brown flour known as fishmeal. During this process the liquid fraction is separated into oil and water followed by an evaporation step leading to fish oil production.

The use of marine ingredients other than for direct human food production has caused controversy. Most fishmeal and fish oil is used today for aquaculture, which has itself attracted criticism mainly on environmental grounds. The main global concern is that increased demand for feed from a growing aquaculture production will increase fishing pressure on wild stocks to supply fishmeal and fish oil and consequently threaten the

The so-called ‘Fishmeal trap’ expresses the concern that overfishing of wild fish for use as aquaculture feed threatens the sustainability of reduction fisheries; a linked concern is that aquaculture is so reliant on the supply of marine ingredients that limited supply will inevitably constrain its further development3. For this to be true various factors need to be understood, including whether increased fishmeal demand results in an increased fishing catch and the extent to which fishmeal can be substituted in fish feeds (e.g. so that increasing fishmeal prices encourage use of alternative raw materials4).

A common criticism by fishery ecologists is that reduction fisheries compromise marine bird, mammal, and predatory fish populations5,6. The objections are on both ecological grounds, linked to biodiversity, and economic grounds, as it is supposed that a valuable catch of fish for human consumption is being denied or reduced due to the operation of a reduction fishery catching (‘lower trophic level’) fish further down the food chain7,8.

Some critics believe that all fish should be processed for human food rather than for livestock feed. When it is argued that there is little or no consumer demand for certain fish species, the reply has been that such fish should then be given to the poor free of charge (e.g. in the case of Peruvian anchovy and poor rural communities of Andean people).

A particular source of criticism is the farming of so-called ‘carnivorous‘ fish, such as Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), which have a relatively higher dietary inclusion of fishmeal and fish oil, implying an inefficient utilisation of scarce marine biomass9,10, compared with those species which can be reared on vegetarian diets.

Also there are claims that reduction fisheries are overfished and that exploitation rates should be drastically reduced6. Furthermore it is suggested that use of fishmeal and fish oil is wrong on public health grounds as it results in the concentration of marine contaminants, which then enter the

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scientific food chain via aquaculture products11.

Finally one may ask if there is a risk of fish to fish disease transmission by feeding marine ingredients to farmed fish.

The supply base of marine raw materials It is estimated that ca 25% of current fishmeal and fish oil supplies are derived from the fishery by-products of processing for human consumption and hence recycle waste which would otherwise incur financial and environmental costs for disposal. This resource is under-exploited today and is expected to provide 43% of the raw material input within the next 10 years2.

However, most concerns centre on the capture fishery element of the raw material base, as follows: (i)Why are whole fish captured for reduction not used instead for human consumption?

The main species and volumes of whole fish used in manufacture of fishmeal and fish oil during 2006 – 2010 are classified into three categories (industrial grade, food grade, and prime food) and listed in Table 1. This categorisation12,13 is based on the view that industrial grade fish, such as

Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) or Gulf menhaden (Brevoortia patronus), are unsuitable for human food and have no current market other than fishmeal or fish oil. For food grade fish, such as Peruvian anchovy (Engraulis ringens), those willing to purchase them as food are far away and cannot normally pay for the costs associated with preservation and transportation; there has been limited success in promoting Peruvian anchovy for direct human consumption (only 1.5% of the anchovy catch by volume went for human consumption in 201114) despite strenuous efforts. As their name implies, prime food fish are very suitable for food markets, but owing to the seasonality and unpredictability of pelagic harvests, there will be occasions when landings are too large for all to be preserved or processed as human food. At such times the smaller and poorer quality fish are diverted for reduction.

However, in recent years there has been a marked reduction in use of prime food fish, such as herring (Clupea harengus) or Jack mackerel (Trachurus murphyi) for reduction, other than as offals or downgraded fish. This is part of an overall increasing trend in the proportion of the world fish catch going for human consump-

tion, – rising from about 68% in the 1980s to 86% in 2010 according to FAO15. (ii)How robust are the fish stocks used for reduction?

Fish stocks for reduction are subject to increasing regulation and control by governments, while the quality of stock management is being increasingly monitored by independent NGOs, as well as by government and industry sources. The FAO16 has published technical guidelines on the use of wild fish as feed for aquaculture in support of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries17. The Sustainable Fisheries Partnership18 analysed how the main reduction fisheries, around South America and across the Atlantic, score using ‘FishSource’ methodology.

They concluded that ‘most operate within limits that would be considered consistent with current good industry practice in the context of single-species management regimes’, adding that ‘all would be enhanced by the incorporation of ecosystem principles into the overall management regime’. The aquaculture value chain is now putting pressure on the fishmeal industry for certification to demonstrate sustainable use of raw materials and on feed

Table 1. Annual global pelagic fishery landings for reduction (average 2006–2010). FM = Fishmeal, FO = Fish Oil, ByP = By-products. (Units of production volume in tonnes). (Modified from Wijkström 2012 using data from FAO 2012b and IFFO estimates) (13,15).

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scientific buyers to purchase from certified sources. In this connection it is claimed that over a third of the world’s fishmeal and fish oil production is now certified to the IFFO-RS global standard for responsible supply19.

By far the world’s largest reduction fishery is that of Peruvian anchovy, with an annual catch, subject to periodic El Niño events, during the period 2000 to 2006, varying from 6 to 10 million tonnes and representing 25% to 30% or more of global fishmeal production depending on the year. It is, therefore, significant that in 2008 Mondoux et al.20 ranked Peru the highest out of 53 maritime countries for the sustainability of its fisheries. Since then Peru has reduced its fishing overcapacity and further improved its management by the introduction of maximum catch limits for each vessel.

Today, the main problems associated with overfishing and poor fishery controls appear to be in China and South East Asia, especially related to use of low value ‘trash’ fish21. Apart from Asia, increasingly stringent controls are now being applied to those fisheries used primarily for reduction purposes, such as Peruvian anchovy and menhaden.

Their stocks appear reasonably robust and are classed by FAO as fully exploited22. However, continuing vigilance is needed since there is a growing recognition that climate-driven changes are affecting some pelagic fish populations. The reduced seasonal availability of sandeels (Ammodytes spp.) in the North Sea is linked to seawater temperature changes, which in turn have resulted in the decline of certain species of seabird23 and of marine mammals24, as well as in lower quotas being issued by the European Union (EU) for the associated reduction fishery. (iii)Should whole fish targeted for reduction be left in the sea?

The Lenfest Ocean program has recently concluded25 that conventional management can be risky for forage fish because it does not adequately account for their wide population swings and high catchability. They claim it also fails to include the critical role of forage fish as food for marine mammals, seabirds, and commercially important fish, such as tuna, cod, and salmon. Lenfest, therefore, recommended cutting catch rates in half in many ecosystems and doubling the minimum biomass that should be left in the water compared with conventional management targets.

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In assessing the validity of these arguments, the following points are made: Small pelagic fish populations certainly fluctuate widely and are easily reduced, and so should be well managed. However, recoverability is equally important. The largest fishery (Peruvian anchovy) suffered a severe El Niño in 2010, but stocks rebounded strongly in 2011 suggesting that in practice the present management regime may be suitable. Until recently there have been justified concerns about the status of some North Sea reduction stocks with an inability to agree quotas linked to political differences in the EU and the Common Fisheries Policy. Whereas there is continuing room for improvement, the overall North Sea picture is now of recovery or of stability, notwithstanding the effects of climate change on sandeel stocks, which indicates that an inherent problem with conventional management is not the main issue. At the same time continuing problems with managing the Jack mackerel resource were closely linked to its migration beyond the Chilean jurisdiction and the difficulty in establishing an international fishing agreement. It is therefore encouraging that ratification by Chile during 2012 of the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation has made the agreement legally binding.

It is certainly true that the activities of reduction fishing cause a decrease in predator populations. Striking an appropriate balance between seabird or marine mammal stocks and pelagic fish stocks implies making a similar judgment as between food security and biodiversity (akin to the ‘set-aside’ question in agriculture). There is no simple answer and one practical solution is the creation of marine reserves to safeguard breeding populations, especially of endangered species.

As regards the view that forage fish are more valuable in the water than in the net, this ignores the conversion ratio in the wild which is of the order of 10 kg of prey to 1 kg of food fish, whereas the aquaculture alternative is much more productive (see paragraph 15 (ii)). (iv)Are there valid human health concerns about eating farmed fish?

On grounds of public health a report about the presence of organic contaminants in farmed salmon11 raised concerns about eating farmed fish owing to the presence of marine contaminants in marine ingredients, which then enter the food chain via aquacul-

ture products. It has since been shown that the potential health risks are extremely small compared to the health benefits of consuming salmon products. Indeed the benefits are estimated to be at least 100-fold greater than the estimates of harm, which may not exist at all26,27. In any event recent data28 show that farmed salmon and trout contained on average lower levels of dioxins and PCBs than wild-caught salmon and trout, at least for Europe.

Following the discovery of a prion protein in fish29, concerns were expressed about the possibility of fish suffering a version of ‘mad cow disease’. It appears that fish prions are different from those in mammals and it is unlikely that transmission could jump from fish to mammals30. Nevertheless it is now recognised aquaculture practice to avoid feeding fish material to other fish of the same or closely related species. The risk of transmitting disease organisms from fish to fish by feeding marine ingredients is low when using properly stored fishmeal owing to the high processing temperatures involved in feed manufacture, but more likely with wet fish diets31.

Production and markets for marine ingredients The total annual supply of fishmeal and fish oil worldwide between 1964 and 2010 is shown in Fig. 3. This supply has stabilized at about 5 million tonnes and 1 million tonnes per annum respectively despite El Niño events. This is clearly less than the 1994 peak and the decline is due to stricter fishing controls, increased processing for human consumption of fish used formerly for fishmeal, and other factors, such as climate-change effects32,33. Fig. 4 illustrates the use in 2010 of fishmeal and fish oil, in aquaculture, representing 73% and 71% of world consumption respectively. The main competitor of aquaculture for fishmeal is pig feed, especially for young pigs at weaning, but aquaculture is gradually taking market share from land animals as pig farmers tend to be more price sensitive than fish farmers and substitute with other ingredients when fishmeal prices increase. The opposite is true for the growing demand from nutraceutical producers of human nutritional supplements (e.g. capsules), where buyers will pay a 20% – 25% premium for fish oil with a high level of omega-3 fatty acids.

This is raising concern about the medium-term sustainability

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Figure 3. World fishmeal and fish oil production for 1964 – 2010 (tonnes x 103) where is for production of fishmeal, for production of fish oil and arrows indicate the El Niño years (source: Shepherd & Jackson 2012) (33)

A

B

fish (a fish-in fish-out ratio, or so-called ‘FIFO’, of 4:1 or 5:1).

Table 3 represents a mass-balance of inputs (fishmeal and fish oil tonnage) and outputs (fed aquaculture tonnage) to calculate an overall FIFO for 2010 of 0.33:1, down from 0.6:1 in 2000 owing to substitution.

It has been shown33 that over this same 10 year period the FIFO ratio of farmed salmonids fell from 2.6:1 to 1.4:1 and for farmed crustaceans (mainly shrimps) from 0.9:1 to 0.4:1.

It is true that farmed salmon are still net consumers of marine ingredients, but their FIFO ratio is fast approaching parity.

For example, using low dietary levels of marine ingredients, farmed Atlantic salmon can be net producers of fish protein and oil with sufficient long chain omega-3 fatty acids produced to meet human health recommendations38.

Interestingly, it also appears that Atlantic salmon can be net producers of the marine long-chain omega-3 fatty acid, DHA, when dietary fish oil is replaced by vegetable oil39.

Given these developments it is difficult to sustain the view that feeding fish to fish is a wasteful use of scarce resources and hence unsustainable, even for those species which are traditionally classed as carnivorous fish. (iii)Will finite supplies of marine ingredients limit aquaculture growth?

Figure 4. Global consumption of fishmeal (A) and fish oil (B) by market segment in 2010. (Source: IFFO) of fish oil supplies for aquaculture feed pending the commercialisation of newer sources of the key long chain omega-3 fatty acids.

Inclusion of marine ingredients in aquaculture feeds (i)Suitability for substitution and dietary inclusion rates Fig. 5 illustrates the reduction in fishmeal and fish oil inclusion rates during the period from 1995 to 2010 for the main aquaculture species groups34.

This reflects the ingenuity of fish nutritionists and feed formulators in substituting fishmeal and fish oil with non-marine ingredients, mainly of vegetable origin (e.g. soyabean meal and rapeseed oil).

Their motivation has been diet cost reduction and formulation flexibility, whereas marine ingredients are of limited and variable supply, which is subject to unpredictable events such as El

Niño.

Fishmeal represents only 4% of total protein meal4 and is not an essential feed ingredient for aquaculture per se, but it provides a near-optimal complete feed in a convenient, cost-effective form35.

The same is true of fish oil and a fish’s requirement for long chain omega-3 fats can be met with low dietary levels of fish oil, so it is possible to replace up to 100% and around 70% in diets for salmonids and marine fish respectively, provided their omega3 fatty acid requirements are met by other ingredients, such as fishmeal36.

At the same time fish genetics is playing an important role in substitution since breeding programmes are improving the biological ability of salmonids to use novel plant-based diets37. (ii)Fish-in fish-out ratios and aquaculture’s marine dependency Aquaculture critics frequently claim that 4 or 5 kg of fish are needed to produce 1 kg of carnivorous farmed

Fig. 6 shows that over the period 2000 to 2010, while fed aquaculture production continued to climb, the use of fishmeal in aquaculture feeds rose until 2005 and then began to plateau before falling in 2010, whereas fish oil consumption remained fairly stable until falling after 2007.

Fishmeal consumption is projected at 3.63 million tonnes in 2015 and only 3.49 million tonnes by 2020, despite projected increases of 143% and 168% in estimated total aquafeed and fed aquaculture production, respectively2,34; this decreased use of fishmeal is predicated on a decreased supply from more regulated fishing, with a consequential increased price, and increased use of more cost-effective fishmeal substitutes.

Although the availability of fishmeal, and probably fish oil, over the next ten years may not be a major constraint, other feed ingredient inputs, such as soyabean, maize, and rendered animal by-products2,40, will need to expand at a rate to sustain this growth.

It should be added that fish oil supply could well become a constraint within the next 5 years owing to competition by the fast-growing nutraceuticals industry for the

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Figure 5. Estimated mean percentage dietary inclusion rate for (A) fishmeal and (B) fish oil in the different groups of farmed species between 1995 and 2010 (modified after Tacon et al. 2011) (34)

Table 2. Mass balance estimate for 2010 for combined consumption of fishmeal and fish oil inputs and fed aquaculture output (tonnes x 103) and corresponding fish-in fish-out ratios, based on whole fish inputs for different market segments (modified after Shepherd & Jackson 2012) (33). long chain omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil41,42. This is unlikely to limit the continuing growth of aquaculture, but is likely to reduce the content of omega3 fats and increase the level of omega6 fats in the final product with potentially negative consumer health implications43. However, alternative algal production of these omega-3 fatty acids has already commenced to supply nutraceuticals, while research to develop genetically-modified (GM) omega-3 oils from oilseeds, such as soyabean, rapeseed and related species, is showing commercial promise, despite a lack of universal market acceptance for GM materials44.

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Conclusions Nutritional and genetic innovation is enabling substitution of fishmeal by other feed ingredients. The use of fishmeal and fish oil in aquaculture diets is static and there is every likelihood that aquaculture will continue its rapid global expansion despite a limited global supply of marine ingredients.

Except for concerns around poorly managed Asian fisheries, the evidence is that in general reduction fisheries are being managed responsibly, therefore increased demand for fishmeal and fish oil is unlikely to result in increased catches for reduction. Taking also into account substitutability, there seems lit-

tle risk of a fishmeal trap, at least outside Asia.

There is a medium-term concern regarding fish oil owing to the growth of demand for human consumption. It seems unlikely that this will constrain aquaculture production, but it will certainly reduce the content of long chain omega-3 fatty acids in some farmed fish until such time as cost-effective alternative sources currently under development become available.

Striking the right balance between the level of reduction catch and leaving fish in the water for predatory fish, birds and mammals is as much down to subjective judgement as to scientific method, but probably all fisheries would benefit from adopting ecosystem management. It seems, however, that calculations of the costs and benefits of reduction fishing are likely to be erroneous if they ignore the far greater conversion efficiency of aquaculture cf. wild fish with natural predation by other fish in the wild.

Using fish landed by industrial fisheries in the Americas and Europe as feed for aquaculture in the long run significantly expands the effective supply of fish for human consumption, – to the extent of at least 11 million tonnes net increment per annum35. As regards the ethical argument that it is morally wrong to feed fish to fish and crustaceans; taking Peruvian anchovy as an example, it is clear that there is a lack of effective demand for human consumption in respect of most of the anchovy caught (despite promotional effort), as the potential consumers live far from the site of the catch. If 8 million tonnes were to be supplied instead as a canned product, the annual cost would be in the order of USD 25 billion per year, – this is not a feasible solution and a subsidized product could well be challenged under World Trade Organisation rules13.

From having been commodities supplying bulk protein and energy, it seems that fishmeal and fish oil are now speciality feed ingredients for aquaculture, used strategically and sparingly. Innovation has underpinned the dramatic growth in aquaculture and dietary development. In the same way the signs are that medium- and longer-term concerns about availability of long chain omega-3 fatty acids will be resolved by algal cultivation and plant breeding of those fatty acids.

Aquaculture will soon overtake conventional fishing as the major source of seafood for human consumption. As such, aquaculture already represents a key element of food security in some regions and its sustainability is more closely linked to the availability of terrestrial feed ingredients than to those of marine origin.

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(tonnes x 106)

Figure 6. World fishmeal and fish oil consumption by aquaculture compared with growth in ‘fed’ aquaculture (millions of tonnes) during 2000-2010 (Solid line = Fed aquaculture; Broken line = Fish meal in aquaculture; Dotted line = Fish oil in aquaculture), (left hand vertical axis refers to fed aquaculture; right hand vertical axis refers to world fishmeal and fish oil consumption by fed aquaculture). (Shepherd & Jackson 2012, based on data from IFFO and FAO 2012a) (33,2)

Acknowledgements Particular thanks are due to Anne Chamberlain, Mark Griffin, Andrew Jackson, David Jones, and Dan Lee, who kindly commented on earlier versions of the manuscript.

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19. IFFO (2012) International Fishmeal and Fish Oil Organisation. Global Standard for Responsible Supply (IFFO-RS). <www.iffo.net>.

20. Mondoux, S, Pitcher, T & Pauly, D (2008) Ranking maritime countries by the sustainability of their fisheries. In: Fisheries Centre Research Report (eds., J Alder and D Pauly), 16, 13-27.

21. Funge-Smith, S, Lindebo, E & Staples, D (2011) Asian fisheries today: the production and use of low-value/trash fish from marine fisheries in the Asia-Pacific region. Bangkok, The AsiaPacific Fishery Commission, RAP Publication 2005/16, 47 pp.

22. FAO (2010) The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2010. Rome, Italy, FAO Fisheries and aquaculture department, The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, 218 pp.

23. Frederiksen, M, Wanless, S, Harris, M P, Rothery, P & Wilson, L J (2004) The role of industrial fisheries and oceanographic change in the decline of North Sea black-legged kittiwakes. Journal of Applied Ecology, 41, 11291139.

24. Macleod, C D, Begoña Santos, M, Reid, R J, Scott, B E & Pierce, G J (2007) Linking sandeel consumption and the likelihood of starvation in harbour porpoises in the Scottish North Sea: could climate change mean more starving porpoises? Biology Letters 3, 185-188.

25. Lenfest (2012) Little fish big impact. A report from the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force, Washington D.C., USA, Lenfest Ocean Program, 108pp.

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scientific 26. Cohen, J T, Bellinger, D C & Connor, W E (2005) A quantitative risk-benefit analysis of changes in population fish consumption.

American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 29, 325-334.

27. Mozaffarian, D & Rimm, E B (2006) Fish intake, contaminants, and human health – evaluating the risks and the benefits. Journal of the American Medical Association, 29, 1885–1895.

28. European Food Safety Authority (2012) Update of the monitoring of levels of dioxin and PCBs in food and feed. Scientific Report of EFSA. EFSA Journal, 10, 2832.

29. Rivera-Milla, E, Stuermer, C A O & Málaga-Trillo, E (2003) An evolutionary basis for scrapie disease: identification of a fish prion mRNA. Trends in Genetics, 19, 72-75.

and future prospects. Aquaculture, 285, 146 – 158.

36. Turchini, G M, Ng, W-K. & Tocher, D R (2011). Fish oil replacement and alternative lipid sources in aquaculture feeds. Baton Rouge, CRC Press, 2011 ISBN 978-1-4398-0862-7.

37. Quinton, C D, Kause, A, Koskela, J & Ritola, A (2007). Breeding salmonids for feed efficiency in current fishmeal and future plantbased diet environments. Genetics Selection Evolution 39, 431-446.

38. Crampton, V O, Nanton, D A, Ruohonen, K, Skjervold, P-O, & El-Mowafi, A (2010).

Demonstration of salmon farming as a net producer of fish protein and oil. Aquaculture Nutrition, 16, 437-446.

30. Málaga-Trillo, E, Salta, E, Figueras, A, Panagiotidis, C & Sklaviadis, T (2011) Fish models in prion biology: underwater issues.

Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, 1812, 402-414.

39. Sanden, M, Stubhaug, I, Berntssen, M H G, Lie, Ø & Torstensen, B E (2011). Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) as a net producer of long-chain marine omega-3 fatty acids. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 59, 1269712706.

31. Roberts, R J & Shepherd, C J (1997).

Handbook of trout and salmon diseases. Third Edition, Oxford, Blackwell Science, 1997 ISBN 0 85238 244 8.

40. Olsen, R L & Hasan, M R (2012). A limited supply of fishmeal: impact on future increases in global aquaculture production. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 27, 120-128.

32. Mittaine, J F (2012). World fishmeal and oil supply/demand and outlook for market trends. In: 7th JCI Spring Conference on Chinese feed raw materials market. Hainan, China, 22 – 23 March 2012.

41. Ismail, A (2010). The future of fish oils in the omega-3 market. Presentation to the IFFO members’ Meeting. The International Fishmeal and Fish Oil Organisation, Miami, USA, 14 April 2010.

33. Shepherd, C J & Jackson, A J (2012).

Global fishmeal and fish oil supply – inputs, outputs and markets. Journal of Fish Biology (In Press).

42. Steine, G, Tveterås, R and Pettersen, I (2011). Fish oil availability going forward – based on a memorandum to the Norwegian Seafood Federation. Presentation on 12th May 2011.

34. Tacon, A G J, Hasan, M R & Metian, M (2011). Demand and supply of ingredients for farmed fish and crustaceans - trends and prospects. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper No. 564. FAO, 87 pp.

35. Tacon, A G & Metian, M (2008). Global overview on the use of fishmeal and fish oil in industrially compounded aquafeeds: trends

Pelagic fish: a shoal of mackerel.

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43. Shepherd, C J (2012). Implications of increased competition for fish oil. Bergen, FishfarmingXpert, September 2012, 5, 40-45.

44. Jackson, A J (2012). The growing demand for novel long chain omega-3 supplies.

Presentation to the Omega-3 Summit, Ghent, Belgium, 23 April 2012.

Aquaculture farm

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economic & social

GM crops, developing countries and food security Francisco JosĂŠ Areal1, Laura Riesgo2 and Emilio Rodriguez-Cerezo3 School of Agriculture, Policy and Development, University of Reading1, UK; Department of Economics, University Pablo Olavide2, Spain; European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), Spain3 Summary The agronomic and economic performance of genetically modified (GM) crops relative to their conventional counterparts has been largely investigated worldwide. As a result there is considerable information to conduct a meta-analysis to evaluate the agronomic and economic relative performance of GM crops vs. non GM crops by crop, GM trait, and countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s level of development. Such meta-analysis has been recently conducted showing that overall GM crops outperform non GM crops in both agronomic and economic terms (1). This paper focuses on the agronomic and economic performance of GM crops in developing and developed countries as well as the potential implications for global food security of adoption of GM crops by developing countries. The presumption that technology only benefits the developed world is not supported by the meta-analysis conducted. No evidence that GM technology benefits moredeveloped than developing countries was found. Indeed, the agronomic and economic performance of GM crops vs. conventional crops tends to be better for developing than for developed countries. Although it is manifested that the conventional agronomic practices in developing countries are different to those in developed countries, it is also apparent that GM crop adoption in developing countries may help to tackle the growing concerns over the scarcity of food globally.

Key words: Developing countries, Food security, meta-analysis, genetically modified crops, Abbreviations: PDF, Probability density function.

Introduction

D

iscussions on the potential agronomic, economic and environmental consequences associated with adoption of genetically modified crops are becoming increasingly relevant under current food security concerns (i.e. continuing population and consumption growth means increase in the global demand for food) (2) .

Since the adoption of GM crops started in 1996 the adoption of these crops has grown rapidly. Currently, a total of 148 million ha are covered by GM crops worldwide; herbicide tolerant (HT) and insect resistant (Bt) being the two main commercialised traits (3). There has been a lot of discussion about the comparative performance of GM and conventional crops. A recent paper (1) used the scientific information available up to date to shed some light on this issue.

Overall, the authors concluded that the agronomic and economic performance of GM crops outweighs the performance of their conventional counterparts. In particular, Bt (1) crops performed both agronomically and economically (gross margin)

significantly better than their conventional counterparts. The picture for HT (2) crops is less clear with results suggesting marginal benefits from GM crops. GM crops economically outperformed non GM crops in both developing (3) and developed countries discrediting any presumption on new technologies only benefiting the developed world.

Data and Methodology The authors conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the agronomic and economic performance of commercialised GM crops compared with their counterparts worldwide using a significant amount of information available through a total of 63 scientific publications. A weighted approach was used in order to give more weight to information (i.e. absolute differences in yield, production costs and gross margins between GM and conventional crops) obtained from studies with large samples. Inferences about the agronomic and economic performance of GM crops in comparison with conventional crops were made using Bayesian methods.

Specifically, means of the absolute differences in yield, production costs

and gross margin were obtained. A major difference between the classical and the Bayesian approach is that the latter treats parameters as random variables. This means that the Bayesian approach yields distributional information for the parameter studied. Also, Bayesian analysis can incorporate prior information about the parameter analysed (in this case the absolute difference of the variable of interest: yield, production cost, or gross margin) using an appropriately chosen pdf.

In this case, a relatively diffuse prior was used reflecting no prior information on what the absolute difference of yield, production cost or gross margin between GM crops and their conventional counterparts may be. This effectively produces similar results to that using a classical approach (1).

Would GM technology adoption benefit the developing world?

The scope of the meta-analysis conducted by (1) covers different levels such as crop level, level of countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s development, world region and as a

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economic & social Although most of the scientific papers focus their analysis in Bt cotton, (1) conducted the analysis per crop and showed that the average difference in yield between Bt maize and conventional was 0.5 tonnes/ha for both developing and developed countries. Hence the adoption of GM crops by developing countries would contribute to the improvement of food security throughout a yield increase effect.

GM crops outperformed non-GM crops in both developing and developed countries in both agronomic and economic (gross margin) terms despite the relatively high price for GM seeds.

GM crops perform agronomically better than conventional crops in both developing and developed countries, with no significant differences in yields between them.

Table 1. Mean of absolute difference of the yield, production costs and gross margins between GM and conventional crops for developing and developed countries. whole. One important question in the GM crop debate is whether GM crops perform well in developing countries, and whether, as a result, this may help delivering global food security challenges.

With a continuously growing population, the pressure on the global food system entails significant challenges regarding the stability of food supplies and prices while maintaining the biodiversity and ecosystem services and contributing to the mitigation of climate change (3).

Evidence suggests that adoption of GM crops may play a role in helping to achieve the stability of food supplies.

New technologies are usually developed and taken first by developed countries and made available later for developing countries.

This has not been different for GM crops. However, although the GM crops area in developing countries was much smaller than in developed countries, the rapid adoption of GM technology by developing countries, especially since 2003, has meant that the GM crops area in developing countries has matched the GM crops area of developed countries in 2011, approximately 80 million hectares (4).

Table 1 shows the mean and standard deviation of conditional posterior distributions of absolute difference of

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the yield, production costs and gross margins between GM and conventional for developed and developing countries (1). The table also shows the probability of each absolute difference to be above zero (i.e. the probability that GM, Bt and HT crops outperforms their conventional crops).

Figure 1 shows the posterior density function of the absolute differences between GM and conventional crops for yield, production costs and gross margins per countriesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; development level and GM trait.

The posterior density function was estimated using kernel density estimation (i.e. using a kernel smoothing function). The values in the y axes are values for this function. A kernel is a more sophisticated version of a histogram.

Therefore values in the y axes represent a function of the frequency for values of the x-axis. While the x-axis represents the absolute differences between GM and non-GM crops for the variables of interest (i.e. yields, production costs and gross margins) the y-axis measures the frequency of these differences.

For instance, the top left graph (GM vs conventional yield) shows that on average most of the results for developing countries fall between 0.3 and 0.4 tonnes/ha difference between GM and conventional (i.e. GM crops have higher yields than conventional).

With regard to production costs adopting GM crops would have two effects: a reduction in costs due to savings in pesticides and an increase in costs due to higher GM seed prices.

The overall picture for production costs suggests that the GM seed prices tend to be higher than the savings in pesticides, particularly in developing countries, from where more information is available.

The better economic performance of GM crops is mainly attributed to the performance of Bt crops where most of the research has focused up to date. So far the evidence collated about the performance of HT crops is small and no conclusions should be taken from it.

The relatively large difference in gross margins in developing countries with respect to developed countries (see Figure 1) is possibly due to important differences in the quality of the crop between GM and their non GM counterparts that are reflected in prices.

Such differences in gross margins are evident for Bt crops.

In particular, for developing countries Bt crops guarantee high crop quality (i.e. no mycotoxins) whereas the conventional treatment in developing countries is not adequate, and possibly not comparable to conventional treatment in developed countries (5,6,7).

Developing countriesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; economies would not only benefit from the increase in supply derived from better agronomic performance of their crop

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economic & social

Figure 1. Comparisons of the distribution of absolute values for the difference between GM and conventional crops in yield, production costs and gross margin for developed and developing countries. The vertical axis is the value of the kernel smoothing function to show the distribution of the differences; values on the horizontal axes are expressed as: tonnes/ha, or as â&#x201A;Ź/ha. Curves are based on results from 63 published sets of data where the difference parameter was calculated as: (GM minus non GM). production. Also, increase in household income derived from higher gross margins can have a positive impact on developing countriesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; economies by increasing their aggregate demand.

The use of redistribution policies would also help to ensure low income members of society also benefit from the economic effect of new technologies.

Discussions &conclusions The meta-analysis conducted using the scientific evidence to date (1) shows that the adoption of new technologies in developing countries may increase global food security by 1) offering food available through increasing yields; 2) increasing the quality of crops supplied in developing countries.

One important aspect that helps towards achieving food security challenges is to build resilience in the food system. In this respect, the environmental impacts from the adoption of GM crops are less clear than the economic and agronomic impacts. For instance, it is unclear whether HT crops could result in more herbicide resistant weeds (8,9).

A large number of producers in developing countries may be resisting GM crop adoption due to two main

factors: the relatively high price of GM seeds and the increased dependency of farmers on multinational companies controlling the GM seed market (10,11). Also, potential loss of agricultural genetic diversity in developing countries is a cause of concern (12).

These aspects embrace market failures associated with not factoring in social and environmental effects. Measures to ensure such genetic diversity is maintained, such as keeping separation distances between adjacent GM and nonGM fields and the direct allocation of areas where GM can be grown, are options that may help protect genetic diversity. These are not small issues and any attempt to contribute to food security through GM crop adoption in developing countries should take these aspects into account.

Research on crop biotechnology is not stopping and new areas of activity in crop biotechnology are likely to be exploited in 10 to 20 years (13). In the future it is foreseen that important crop biotechnological advances such as improvements in photosynthetic efficiency, as well as improvements in tolerance to plant pests and resistance to diseases will occur. These new areas should provide opportunities for devel-

oped and developing countries to contribute to global food security.

Disclaimer The views expressed are purely those of the authors and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission.

References (1). Amongst Bt crops only Bt maize and Bt cotton were analysed this paper.

(2).HT crops include HT oilseed, HT soybean and HT maize.

(3).Countries were grouped into developing and developed countries following the International Monetary Fundâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s classification.

1.Areal, F J, Riesgo, L, Rodriguez-Cerezo, E (2012) Economic and agronomic impact of commercialized GM crops: a meta-analysis.

Journal of Agricultural Science, 151, 7-33.

2.Godfray, H C J, Beddington, J R, Crute, I R, Haddad, L, Lawrence, D, Muir, J F, Pretty, J, Robinson, S, Thomas, S M, Toulmin, C (2010) Food Security: The challenge of feeding 9 billion people. Science, 327, 812-17.

3.The Government Office for Science (2011) Foresight. The future of food and farming. Final Project Report. London 4.James, C (2011) Global status of commercialised biotech/GM crops: 2010. ISAAA Brief 42-2010. Ithaca, NT: ISAAA. 5.Wu, F (2006) Mycotoxin reduction in Bt corn: potential economic, health and regulatory issues. Transgenic Research, 15, 277-89.

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economic & social 6. Huesing, J, and English, L (2004) The impact of Bt crops on developing crop. AgBioForum, 7, 84-95.

7.Qaim, M, Pray, C E, Zilberman, D (2008) Economic and social considerations in the adoption of Bt crops, in Romeis et al. (eds.)

Integration of insect-resistant genetically modified crops within IPM programs, 329-56.

Netherlands: Springer.

8.Bonny, S (2011) Herbicide-tolerant soybean over 15 years of cultivation: pesticide use, weed resistance, and some economic issues.

The case of the USA. Sustainability, 3, 1302-22.

9.Cerdeira, A L, Gazziero, D L P, Duke, S O, Matallo, M B, Spadotto, C A (2007)Review of potential environmental impacts of transgenic glyphosate-resistant soybean in Brazil. Journal of Environmental Science and Health, Part B: Pesticides, Food Contaminants, and Agricultural

Bt cotton crop in Texas.

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Wastes, 42, 539-49.

10.Qaim, M, and de Janvry, A (2003): Genetically modified crops, corporate pricing strategies, and farmers’ adoption: the case of Bt cotton in Argentina. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 85, 814-28.

11.FAO (2002) World Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030. Rome: FAO. Available online: http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/y3557e/y3557 e00.htm Snow, A A (2002) Transgenic crops – why gene flow matters. Nature Biotechnology, 20, 542.

12.Snow, A A (2002) Transgenic crops – why gene flow matters. Nature Biotechnology, 20, 542.

13.Dunwell, J M (2010) Foresight project on global food and farming futures. Crop biotechnology: prospects and opportunities. Journal of Agricultural Science, 1-11.

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Land Degradation and the Rural Poor Edward B. Barbier John S. Bugas Professor of Economics, University of Wyoming Summary By 2025, the rural population of the developing world will have increased to almost 3.2 billion, placing increasing pressure on natural resources, especially arable land. Around 1.3 billion people in developing economies live in marginal areas and on ecologically fragile land, such as converted forest frontier areas, poor quality uplands, and converted wetlands. Around two-thirds are among the poorest rural households, who have very few productive assets, except land and unskilled labour, and live in remote areas. It is these “asset-less” poor who are most likely to suffer from extreme land degradation, resulting in a “poverty-environment trap”. In addition, developing economies with high concentrations of their populations on fragile lands and in remote areas not only display high rates of rural poverty but also are some of the poorest countries in the world today. Policies to eradicate poverty and reduce land degradation therefore need to be targeted at the poor where they live, especially the rural poor clustered in fragile environments, remote areas and marginal land.

Keywords: developing countries, fragile environment, land degradation, rural poverty Abbreviations: PES, Payment for ecosystem services.

Glossary: Remote areas: locations with poor market access, requiring five or more hours to reach a market town of 5,000 or more.

Introduction Land use in developing countries is critically bound up with their pattern of economic development. Most of these economies, and certainly the majority of the populations living within them, depend directly on natural resources. Primary product exports account for the vast majority of the export earnings of many developing economies, and one or two primary commodities make up the bulk of exports (1). Agricultural value added accounts for an average of 40% of gross domestic product (GDP), and nearly 80% of the labour force are engaged in agricultural or resourcebased activities (2). Further adding to these disparities, by 2025, the rural population of the developing world will have increased to almost 3.2 billion, placing increasing pressure on natural resources, especially arable land (3).

As a result of these trends, expansion of less-favoured agricultural lands is occurring primarily to meet the subsistence and near-subsistence needs of poor rural households. This is not a new phenomenon, yet this process has become a major structural feature of most poor economies. Many of the world's rural poor continue to be concentrated in the less ecologically favoured and remote areas of developing regions, such as converted forest frontier areas, poor quality uplands, converted wetlands, and similar lands with limited agricultural potential (4-

7). Population increases and other economic pressures are driving many of the rural poor to bring yet more marginal land into production (3,8,9).

Such marginal land expansion continues to absorb the growing number of rural poor in developing economies (5,8,10).

The result is that the rural poor located on marginal and low productivity agricultural land typically employ traditional farming methods, earn negligible land rents or profits, face insecure tenure arrangements, endure severe land degradation, and have inadequate access to transport, infrastructure and markets (1,5,10-14).

This paper argues that, because of the increasing concentration of the rural poor in areas of fragile environments prone to land degradation and remote from markets, there is a need to re-think global development strategies to cope with this problem.

The next section provides evidence of the scale of the poverty and land problem. It is subsequently shown that the economic vulnerability of the “asset-less” poor in remote and fragile environments creates problems of “poverty traps”. Overcoming such traps and reducing land degradation requires a different policy strategy aimed at targeting the rural poor where they are concentrated in remote and less favoured areas, and alleviating the constraints that they face to improving their livelihoods.

Marginal Land Since 1950, the estimated population in developing economies on “fragile lands” prone to land degradation has doubled (6). These fragile environments consist of upland areas, forest systems and drylands that suffer from low agricultural productivity, and areas that present significant constraints for intensive agriculture. Today, nearly 1.3 billion people – almost a fifth of the world’s population – live in such areas in developing regions (6).

Other estimates suggest that poor people in developing countries are predominantly found in areas with the greatest potential for land and water degradation; i.e., land with highly weathered soils, steep slopes, inadequate or excess rainfall, and high temperatures (4). About 630 million of the rural poor live on these unfavourable lands in the developing world, whereas just under 320 million of the poor have access to favoured lands (4).

Figure 1 further illustrates that rural poverty is correlated with the fraction of the population in developing countries found in degradable and poor quality lands. As the figure indicates, for a sample of 92 low and middle income economies, the incidence of rural poverty rises with the share of the total population concentrated on fragile lands. Although the average poverty rate across all economies is 45.3%, the rate falls to 36.4% for those countries with less than 20% of

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economic & social $995 or less (2). Similarly, as Figure 4 indicates, developing economies with a large share of their rural populations located in remote areas tend to be relatively poor. Across 104 countries, the average (median) share of rural population in remote areas is 26.9% (18.7%), and the average (median) share of real GDP per capita is $2,075 ($1,100).

Figure 1: The rural poor and population on fragile lands in developing economies.

The rural poor will continue to be clustered on marginal lands, fragile environments and remote areas, given current global rural population and poverty trends. First, despite rapid global urbanization, the rural population of developing regions continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate in recent years. From 1950 to 1975, annual rural population growth in these regions was 1.8%, and from 1975 to 2007 it was just over 1.0% (3).

Second, the vast majority of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poor still live in rural areas, even allowing for the higher cost of living facing the poor in urban areas. In general, about twice as many poor people live in rural than in urban areas in the developing world (9). Around 30% of the rural population in developing economies survive on less than US $1 a day and 70% live on less than US$2 a day, yet the respective poverty rates in urban areas are less than half of these rural rates (9).

Review of evidence Figure 2: The rural poor and population in remote areas of developing economies. their population in fragile environments. For those with more than 50% of their populations in marginal areas, however, the incidence of rural poverty rises to 50% or more.

The rural poor of developing economies also tend to be concentrated in remote areas, locations with poor market access and that require five or more hours to reach a market town of 5,000 or more (see Figure 2). Around 430 million people in developing countries live in such distant rural areas, and nearly half (49%) of these populations are located in less favoured areas, which are semi-desert and semi-arid regions characterized by frequent moisture stress that limits agricultural production and land degradation (7). As indicated in Figure 2, developing countries that have a larger share of their rural populations located in remote rural areas also display higher rural poverty rates. Across 91 developing countries, the average (median) share of rural population in

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remote areas is 26.9% (19.0%), whereas the average (median) share of rural population in poverty is 45.2% (46.5%).

Developing economies with high concentrations of their populations on fragile lands and in remote areas not only display high rates of rural poverty but also are some of the poorest countries in the world today. As indicated in Figure 3, for a sample of 104 low and middle income economies, real GDP per capita declines sharply with the share of the population in fragile environments. For all economies, the average GDP per capita is $1,952, but for those economies with less than 20% of their populations on fragile lands, real GDP per capita more than doubles to $3,961. In contrast, for those economies with 50% or more of the population in fragile lands, GDP per capita falls to $822 or less. The low-income, or poorest, economies of the world are those in which 2009 Gross National Income per capita was

Because the rural poor of developing economies are often concentrated in ecologically fragile and remote locations, these areas can become significant poverty traps. To understand why, it is important to identify the typical conditions facing the â&#x20AC;&#x153;asset-lessâ&#x20AC;? poor in such regions that influence their use of available natural capital.

The poorest rural households in developing economies have very few productive assets (11). First, land is one of the few productive assets owned by the rural poor, and almost all households engage in some form of agriculture, but the size of landholdings tends to be very small. Second, poor rural households tend to rely on selling their only other asset, unskilled labour. Agriculture is generally not the mainstay of most these households; instead, they generally obtain most of their income from off-farm work as agricultural labourers or in unskilled paid work or occupations outside of agriculture. However, when households do engage in outside employment, they tend to migrate only temporarily and for short distances.

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economic & social the successful adoption of improved agricultural technologies, and may even compensate for the disadvantages of marginal environments, such as poor rainfall (17). In Nepal and Ethiopia, the lack of vital infrastructure, such as roads, irrigation and infrastructure, severely constrains the ability of poor farmers in remote and environmentally fragile areas to adopt new technologies and increase agricultural incomes (18, 19).

Figure 3. Fragile land population and GDP per capita in developing economies.

Figure 4. Remote rural population and GDP ($) per capita in developing economies: (2,7).

Permanent migration over long distances for work is rare for most poor rural households (11). Thus, given the lack of ownership of assets by the rural poor, and their tendency to stay where they are located, it is not surprising that the livelihoods of the "asset-less" poor are often the most dependent on their surrounding natural environments, including the poor quality "marginal" land available for cultivation.

The range of choices and trade-offs available to the poor is also affected by their access to key markets, such as for land, labour, credit as well as goods and services, as well as the quality and state of the land and surrounding environment on which their livelihoods depend (1,5,7,10-15).

Because of missing or inaccessible markets, therefore, the “asset-less” poor often depend on exploiting the surrounding environment and available marginal land for survival (12).

This is especially the case in remote

rural areas, where local markets are isolated from larger regional and national markets and essential public services are lacking (13).

Lack of assets and access to key markets may also constrain the ability of poor households to adopt technologies to improve their farming systems and livelihoods. A meta-analysis based on 120 cases of agricultural and forestry technology by smallholders across the developing world found that credit, savings, prices, market constraints, and access to extension and training, as well as tenure and plot characteristics, such as soil quality and landholding size, are important determinants of adoption behaviour (16). Not surprisingly, the result is low adoption rates for sustainable agricultural and forestry technologies among poor smallholders, especially those with lower quality soils. In Mozambique, market access through an adequate road network and transport services is crucial in determining

Given that poor rural households engage in some agriculture, and are highly dependent on outside employment for income, their livelihood strategies across these activities must be inter-dependent. In particular, as the "natural" assets and land available to them degrade or disappear, the rural poor are likely to search for more paid work to increase their earnings from outside jobs. Such environmental degradation effectively lowers the “reservation wage” of the poor for accepting paid work, as households are forced to look for additional work to make up the lost income (12,15, 20-22).

For example, in the Yucatán, Mexico, in response to increased population density and declining soil fertility, only the better off households are able to devote more labour to off-farm employment; in contrast, the poorer households allocate even more labour to shifting cultivation, thus perpetuating problems of shortened fallows and declining yields (21,22). On the other hand, in the rain-fed upland areas of Honduras, favourable rainfall during the secondary season lowers the probability that a household's income-earning strategy focuses on off-farm work, probably because it makes own farm vegetable production more profitable (20).

Evidence from the Philippines confirms that higher wages for off-farm employment can draw away smallholder labour that would otherwise be used for clearing more forests for onfarm agricultural production (10, Shively and Fisher 2004). However, poorer households in remote locations are the least likely to participate in offfarm employment, as they face higher transaction and transportation costs (23). Similar results have been found in Nepal; higher wages reduce smallholder deforestation, but only if there are paid employment opportunities available in remote areas (24). Nonfarm employment and improved wages in Honduras has also been associated with investments to improve

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economic & social cropland quality in Honduras and improved resource conditions in Uganda (25). In El Salvador, as the employment opportunities and income per capita of agricultural wage owners declined, they relied increasingly on cultivating land for subsistence production. But rising income growth also enables poor and near poor households to acquire more land for cultivation, as a precaution against possible future income losses (26). In Honduras, there is concern that the 30-50% decline in real wages over the past decade has shifted upland households to income strategies emphasizing hillside cropland expansion and resource degradation that has worsened rural poverty (20). Similarly, in the YucatĂĄn, because they have limited access to off-farm employment, the least poor households tend to over-supply labour to shifting cultivation and thus clear too much forest land (22).

high incidence of rural poverty but also are some of the poorest economies in the world.

Although higher non-farm income may discourage cropland expansion and deforestation, it does not necessarily follow that households will invest more in conserving and improving existing land. For example, in the Ethiopian highlands, better access to low-wage non-farm employment improved substantially the income of households, but because it also reduced farming activities and food production, increased non-farm income also undermined the incentives for soil conservation (27). Similarly, as real wages rise, the poorest households in the YucatĂĄn actually decrease their supply of labour to outside employment and increase clearing forests for shifting cultivation. In contrast, richer households respond to higher real wages but supplying more labour to outside work, thus reducing shifting cultivation and deforestation (22).

Improve access of the rural poor in less favoured and remote areas to wellfunctioning and affordable markets for credit, insurance and land.

Towards a new poverty eradication strategy To summarize, a distinct geographic pattern of natural resource use and rural poverty has emerged in developing economies. Many low and middleincome economies display a high concentration of a large segment of the population in fragile environments and in remote areas with poor market access, and rural poverty. Moreover, there appears to be a correlation of this pattern of resource use with poor economic performance: those developing countries that are highly resource dependent and whose populations that are concentrated in marginal and remote areas tend not only to have a

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To eradicate such persistent problems of geographically concentrated rural poverty in developing economies will require a new poverty eradication strategy. Such a targeted strategy for the rural poor in remote and less favoured areas will require the following components: Provide financing directly, through involving the poor in payment for ecosystem services schemes and similar incentive mechanisms that enhance the environments on which the poor depend.

Target investments directly to improving the livelihoods of the rural poor, especially their existing agricultural and resource production activities, thus reducing their dependence on exploiting environmental resources.

Reduce the high transportation and transaction costs that prohibit the poorest households in remote areas to engage in off-farm employment and to integrate with larger markets.

Addressing the specific problem of over-grazing and land degradation in semi-arid and arid regions.

Improving education of women in remote and environmentally fragile rural areas.

If policies are to be targeted to improve both rural livelihoods and to protect the fragile environments on which many poor people depend, such a strategy must take into account many important factors influencing householdsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; behaviour, including lack of income opportunities or access to key markets for land, labour and credit, and the availability and quality of natural resources, including land, to exploit (12). Nevertheless, there are several ways in which a strategy could be developed to target improving the livelihoods of the poor.

The first is to provide financing directly, through involving the poor in payment for ecosystem services schemes and other measures that enhance the environments on which the poor depend (28-31). Payments for the conservation of standing forests or wildlife habitat are the most frequent type of compensation programmes used currently in developing countries, and they have been mainly

aimed at paying landowners for the opportunity costs of preserving natural landscapes that provide one or more diverse services: carbon sequestration, watershed protection, biodiversity benefits, wildlife protection and landscape beauty (28, 29,31). Wherever possible, the payment schemes should be designed to increase the participation of the poor, to reduce any negative impacts on non-participants while creating additional job opportunities for rural workers, and to provide technical assistance, access to inputs, credit and other support to encourage poor smallholders to adopt the desired land use practices. More effort must also be devoted to designing projects and programs that include the direct participation of the landless and near landless.

Spatial targeting of payments for ecosystem services may be one way of both reducing costs of implementation and also ensuring that more benefits reach the rural poor, as programmes and studies in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala and Madagascar have shown (32-34). Even in a poor African economy, such as Tanzania, a correctly designed payment for ecosystem services (PES) programme can provide an important source of funding for sustainable land use practices in agriculture while leading to greater watershed protection (35). In the upstream catchment area of the Ruvu River, poor farmers face financial and technical obstacles to adopting sustainable land management that reduce soil erosion and enhance downstream water quality. By providing institutional, technical and financial support to farmers, a PES scheme for watershed protection delivers on these environmental goals while at the same time boosting crop productivity from improved soil conservation and fertility and thus raising farm incomes. The PES scheme is now being used to enhance sustainability by investing in an appropriate legal and institutional framework for long-term financing and expansion of sustainable land management among farmers to improve watershed management.

A second objective is to target investments directly to improving the livelihoods of the rural poor in remote and fragile environments. For example, in Ecuador, Madagascar and Cambodia poverty maps have been developed to target public investments to geographically defined sub-groups of the population according to their relative poverty status, which could substantially improve the performance of the programmes in term of poverty

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economic & social alleviation (36). A study that examined 122 targeted programmes in 48 developing countries confirms their effectiveness in reducing poverty, if they are designed properly (37). A review of poverty alleviation programmes in China, Indonesia, Mexico and Vietnam also found evidence of success in specifically targeting spatially disadvantaged areas and households, although the benefits are larger when programmes, such as PROGRESA in Mexico, were successful in employing second-round targeting to identify households in poor locations and thus reducing leakages to non-poor households (38).

Research, extension and agricultural development has historically been oriented towards major commercial and export-oriented crops in developing economies, not targeted for improving low-productivity agricultural systems or farming in less favourable environments. Yet such improvements can substantially improve the livelihoods of the poor, increase employment opportunities and even reduce environmental degradation (1,8,10,18,39,40).

Empirical evidence of technical change, increased public investments and improved extension services in remote regions indicates that any resulting land improvements that do increase the value of homesteads can have a positive effect on both land rents and in reducing agricultural expansion (10,18,19,40-42).

In addition, policies need to address the lack of access of the rural poor in less favoured areas to well-functioning and affordable markets for credit, insurance and land, and the high transportation and transaction costs that prohibit the poorest households in remote areas to engage in off-farm employment, which are the major long-run obstacles that need to be addressed. As discussed previously, such problems lie at the heart of the poverty trap faced by many poor people in remote and less favoured areas (12-13). For example, improving market integration may depend on targeted investments in a range of public services and infrastructure in remote and ecologically fragile regions, such as extension services, roads, communications, protection of property, marketing services and other strategies to improve smallholder accessibility to larger markets. For poor households in remote areas of a wide range of developing countries, the combination of targeting agricultural research and extension services to poor farmers

combined with investments in rural road infrastructure to improve market access appears to generate positive development and poverty alleviation benefits (16-19,41,43). In Mexico, poverty mapping was found to enhance the targeting of maize crop breeding efforts to poor rural communities in less favourable and remote areas (41). In the Central Highlands of Vietnam, the introduction of fertilizer, improved access to rural roads and markets, and expansion of irrigation increased dramatically agricultural productivity and incomes (43).

Because they face higher transaction and transportation costs, poorer households in remote locations are the least likely to participate in off-farm employment. Yet, as discussed previously, when off-farm employment opportunities are available in remote areas, they can reduce conditions fostering the poverty-environment trap faced by poor households (10,2124,26). For example, in Columbia, high-input, intensified, highly mechanized cropping on the most suitable land, as well as expansion in cattle grazing has drawn labour from more traditional agriculture, so that areas of marginal land are slowly being abandoned and revegetating (44).

Investments in expanded market opportunities, improving market access and expanding public infrastructure and services, including, rural education and health services, seem to be important factors in both reducing the barriers to household participation in offfarm opportunities and expanding their supply.

Of particular concern is addressing the problem of overgrazing of rangelands in remote semi-arid and arid regions. Around 10 to 20% of global drylands experience some form of severe land degradation, affecting the livelihoods of around 250 million in the developing world (45). Raising livestock is often the predominant use of these lands, which supports the livelihoods of the poorest rural households. For example, in Kenya rangelands have some of the highest poverty rates in Kenya, and they are also the areas with poorest access to roads, education and health services, and general infrastructure (46). A concerted effort is required to target policies and investments directly to improving the livelihoods of the rural poor dependent on rangelands in dryland regions and improving the sustainability of grazing methods. There is also a need to improve upon and develop

community-based payment schemes for ecosystem services that target the rural poor on rangelands (47).

Tackling gender inequalities within households in remote rural areas is often identified as important for improving and diversifying livelihoods (48, 49). Evidence suggests that female-headed households may also lack access to crucial productive resources, certain labour-intensive activities are more difficult for households without sufficient youthful and able-bodied workers, and women may be excluded from participating in schooling or off-farm labour markets (49). Remote and less-favored areas not only have fewer health and education programmes, but women in these areas especially lack access to such programmes, further contributing to household poverty, poor nutrition and child morbidity and mortality (49).

Policies and investments that address women's education and health in remote and fragile rural areas as well as the particular production and livelihood constraints faced by femaleheaded households are urgently needed.

Conclusion Overcoming the problem of widespread rural poverty and land degradation in developing economies will require new strategies for poverty eradication that take into account the increasing geographical concentration of the rural poor in remote and less favoured areas. Rural poverty rates in developing economies have declined over the past decade but remain high in South Asia (40%) and Sub-Saharan Africa (51%), and where reduction in rural poverty has occurred, it is largely due to rural development and not rural-urban migration (7).

Policies to eradicate poverty therefore need to be targeted at the poor where they live, especially the rural poor clustered in fragile environments and remote areas. The specific elements of such a strategy include involving the poor in payment for ecosystem services schemes and other measures that enhance the environments on which the poor depend, targeting investments directly to improving the livelihoods of the rural poor, thus reducing their dependence on exploiting environmental resources, and tackling the lack of access of the rural poor in less favoured areas to well-functioning and affordable markets for credit, insurance and land, and the high transportation and transaction

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economic & social costs that prohibit the poorest households in remote areas to engage in offfarm employment. A special effort is also needed to target women and female-headed households in remote and poor rural areas, as well as rangeland systems in drylands.

Finally, a policy strategy targeted at improving the livelihoods of the rural poor located in remote and fragile environments must be assessed against an alternative strategy, which is to encourage greater out-migration from these areas. Rarely, however, are the two types of policy strategies, investment in poor rural areas and targeted out-migration, directly compared. In addition, only recently have the linkages between rural out-migration, smallholder agriculture and land use change and degradation in remote areas been analyzed (50). Another important emerging area of research is to examine the economic choices made by poor rural households to migrate to remote and environmentally poor frontier regions as opposed to urban areas (1,8,12). Researching such linkages will become increasingly important to understanding the conditions under which policies to encourage greater rural out-migration should be preferred to a targeted strategy to overcome the root cause of the poverty-environment and spatial-poverty traps in remote and fragile areas.

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35. Branca, G, Lipper, L, Neves, B, Lopa, D & Mwanyoka, I (2011) Payments for watershed services supporting sustainable agricultural development in Tanzania. Journal of Environment and Development 20,278-302.

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economic & social

Uganda Agrochemical dealers’ practises and interactions with farmers J. Lamontagne-Godwin, P. Taylor CAB International (CABI), Bakeham Lane, TW20 9TY, UK Corresponding author: j.lamontagne-godwin@cabi.org Summary The agricultural industry is an essential component of the Uganda economy and often struggles to obtain good advice through its existing national agricultural extension and research system. Agricultural dealers (agrodealers) are often the primary source of advice for farmers with a crop health problem, yet we have little practical information on agrodealers’ background, their relationship to farmers and how they position themselves in the agrochemical industry. Through a questionnaire based study, 975 agrodealers were asked about their interactions with farmers, level of training, and knowledge of plant health problems and their role in the agrochemical industry. The majority of agrodealers entered the industry in order to help farmers and seed is the most important of the products stocked and sold in their stores.

However, 14% had not received any training before opening their stores. Most agrodealers price their products according to trade and local market conditions and not by government guidelines. The vast majority of agrodealers already give farmers pest and disease advice, and would welcome further training to help their business develop. This study introduces the types of problems Ugandan agrodealers face. A competent recording and communication scheme between agrodealers, government and manufacturers is vital for the positive growth of the industry and should be used to enhance national food security.

Keywords: Agrodealer, social study, Uganda, UNADA, CABI Abbreviations: AGRA, Association for a Green Revolution in Africa; IFDC, International Fertiliser Development Centre; MAAIF, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal, Irrigation and Fisheries; NAADS, National Agricultural Advisory Services (Uganda); NGO, Non-Government Organisation; UNADA, Ugandan National AgroDealer Association; UBOS,Uganda Bureau of Statistics; USAID, U.S. Agency for International Development.

Introduction Eighty per cent of the workforce in Uganda works in agriculture1. Despite this, over 50% of the population experience food shortages2.

Agricultural inputs are a means to increase agricultural productivity, and are used widely worldwide. The agricultural supply industry is firmly established in Uganda: approximately 2000 registered agrochemical dealers (agrodealers) currently operate and serve the farming community3. They are often the first source of advice for farmers in countries with weak national agricultural extension and research systems. Their advice and knowledge directly affects farmers’ behaviour and therefore the country’s crop yields and food security.

The creation of a plant health system4 involves five actors each interacting in a proper manner. The farmer, extension worker, regulators, research bodies and the agrochemical supply trade all need to work in unison with appropriate connections

to each other to create a strong environment for crop production.

There is the potential, however, that the agrodealers are ignored by the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) in action plans5 developed to create a dynamic new outlook for agricultural support.. This is common practice in public action plans. The integration of agrodealers into public agricultural initiatives has historically been slow for two main reasons. Firstly agrodealers are often viewed with some suspicion by independent agriculturists and public services, who believe them to provide biased advice and promote the use of unnecessary and/or inappropriate products and generally to act in their own interests rather than that of the customer6.

Secondly, they are an extremely heterogeneous group in relation to their education, agricultural knowledge and economic situation, making it difficult to design policies that will benefit all agrodealers9.

Historically studies on agricultural input supply have focused mainly on

the ecological, medical and socioeconomic effects of chemicals on end users7,8,9. Recently, however, more studies have concentrated on the socio-economics of the dealers themselves investigating how they work within the agricultural input supply industry6,10. However, even the most basic of information has not previously been asked of agrochemical dealers in a systematic way, such as: The level of training they have received in the past, and their future needs; The range of chemicals they sell, and how they stock their shops; Their perceived knowledge of plant pests and diseases; Their relationships with farmers, the agrochemical industry, and policy makers; Despite a recent study11 on the interactions between women farmers and agrodealers, there has been no attempt to garner information from the dealers themselves. Nevertheless, it

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economic & social is important to understand the perceived role of the agrochemical dealers in crop production from within the industry.

There is no legal obligation to have gained any qualifications to trade in agricultural chemicals, so it is hard to assess agrodealers without the help of an existing structure.

Half the agrodealers in Uganda are registered as members of The National Secretariat of the “Ugandan National AgroDealer Association” (UNADA).

This trade organisation is funded by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and it was members of UNADA who were the source of information for this study.

Methods UNADA conducted monthly regional training sessions between Aug 2009 and Aug 2010 around Uganda, each attended by approximately 80 agrodealers.

Sessions were designed to help members respond to changing needs within the industry and featured training in business management, market development, on-farm demonstrations, radio and print advertising, trade fairs, advocacy and policy analysis updates, as well as market linkages and information on prices and products.

Study Design: The questionnaire was devised by CABI and approved by UNADA staff and integrated as an exercise in the training course. Initially, UNADA staff based their training on the aims of the study.

Interviewees were given ample time to answer all the questions adequately and with assistance. The first 80 agrodealers in the UNADA training

programme in August 2009 were used as a test sample.

Subsequently, three ambiguous questions were corrected to ensure the participants answered either “yes” or “no” and the previously ambiguous questions were not used in the overall data analysis.

Overall, 975 participants completed the questionnaire between August 2009 and August 2010.

Questionnaire design Owing to its multiple aims, the questionnaire had 35 questions and participants were given half an hour to complete the study. The design of the questionnaire was based upon the model described in Bradburn et al.12.

Different formats were used for questions, depending on the information needed for analysis.

Certain questions had a marking system applied to them, listing their preferences, while others had a more direct approach, asking the agrodealers to fill in only one answer designed to categorise the way they viewed a particular aspect of their work (Table 1 gives an example).

At the end of the study, data were collated, inserted into an Excel spreadsheet (Microsoft Corporation) and analysed using single-variate analyses and summary statistics.

The Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was used for the measure of correlation between variables .

This statistical test is used as a measure of the strength of linear dependence between two variables.

Results Demographics: The training covered 973 dealers, with an average age of 35.6 years (median = 33). The youngest participant was 14 years old,

and the eldest, 71. The average number of years in practice was 4.1, with a median of 3 years.

One trainee was just starting out in the industry, whilst the greatest number of years of practice for any participant was 41 years.

Table 2 shows the reasons dealers joined the sector.

Products stocked in shop: The most commonly stocked product was seed, with 51% of the responses compared to 14% for both pesticide and herbicide, whilst 54% of the responses stated “Nematicide” as the “Least Important” product.

Frequency and choice of restock: Of the 925 responses, 46% bought their products monthly; 37% bought their products every week, and 12% every 6 months.

Daily and yearly restocking was infrequent (2% and 3% respectively).

Pricing of the products: Interviewees were also asked how they determined the price of their products.

Of the 960 respondents, 26.7% decided the price themselves, 10% used government guide prices, 44% based the price on the wholesale price and 18.9% observed other dealers prices.

Counterfeit chemicals: 96.5% of participants sold their chemicals in the original containers. 93% also thought counterfeit chemicals were a big problem in Uganda, and 84% were concerned that products they bought in the past had been counterfeit.

Time spent with customers: Of the 946 responses, 58% spent 5-10 minutes with customers, and 30% spent less than half an hour with clients. 12% spent over half an hour with customers.

Product payment: 96% of agrochemical sales at the shop were cash over the counter sales.

However, 27% of these gave temporary loans and extended credit to returning and known clients. Only 2% of agrodealers gave clients an official shop account, as recorded in their official sales ledger.

Table 1 Example of question format intended to elicit the dealer’s attitude to his business.

Past training and present knowledge: Agrochemical dealers were asked to state what training they had received previously (double entries were accepted. e.g. a dealer might

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economic & social The Agrodealers interviewed had practised for an average of 4.1 years.

This could be due to (1) a high turnover rate in the industry, causing many agrodealers to close down their business and (2) that the Ugandan agrochemical industry is growing and young professionals have decided to join.

Those who joined the industry for professional reasons have the highest level of training. They are willing to stay in the industry once trained, or qualified.

Table 2. Reason given by the 902 responding participants for entering the industry. have received a “Safe use and Handling of Chemicals” training as well as a “Product Knowledge” course in the past). Participants had attended 1053 training courses in total.

Of the 972 agrodealers in the study, 218 did not respond to the question study and 153 (14.5%) stated they had received no training (43% of these were from dealers who entered the agrochemical industry for economic reasons).

Fifty per cent of all training courses received were the “Safe use and Handling of Chemicals”. “Fertiliser Application”, “Agricultural Sciences”, “Business Management”, “Product Knowledge” and “Crop Protection” all featured in 1 to 6% of courses.

Official government training was the most frequent form of training, according to 41% of the interviewees, followed by Suppliers (30%).

Chemical products labels and leaflets given by suppliers were also seen as a good source of information by 49% of interviewees.

When asked if they knew how the chemicals they sold worked biologically, 70% stated “Yes”, 21% said that they knew “For most of them”, and only 9% said “No”.

Future training: 99% of all interviewees would like to be involved in training in the future. They would prefer NGO training (46% listed this as their preferred option), but 37% would want government training, and 17% would endorse a private company giving them training.

Future business model: When asked how they would like their business to grow, 40% of all interviewees listed the category “To Become More

Knowledgeable” as the most important aspect. The least important for the growth of their business was “To Open More Stores” (32% of interviewees placing this in the Least Important category).

Customers’ demands: 46% of all agrodealers regularly get customers coming into their shop to demand a chemical by simply describing the problem on their crop.

A specific brand name is wanted by 39 % and 15% demand a group of chemicals (for example: a fungicide).

Of clients who came into their shop 62 % came to buy chemicals, whilst 38% thought their customers came in to ask for advice and 61% of agrodealers said good advice was more important than the right chemical.

Table 3 summarises the advice and buying habits of agrodealer client farmers.

Discussion As was stated earlier, there have been few studies of agrodealers, and our attempt to describe the demographics provided interesting results.

The average age of agrodealers is 35.6 y and those who join a family business form the youngest category.

Pearson’s test gives a medium strong correlation between the age of an agrodealer and his choice of profession. Indeed, their young age is to be expected if they start working early, as a helper, for their relative who owns the shop.

This is a traditional concept in African countries. It is, however, worrying, as they most likely have not received the same amount of training as the person who opened the shop.

Indeed, based on the correlation between “age” and “years of practice”, most young agrochemical dealers remain in the industry, particularly if academically, or professionally, trained.

Seed is the most important product stocked by agrodealers, presumably because of its constant use by farmers, as confirmed by the UB OS13.

Unsurprisingly, nematicides were the least popular product to be stocked, as appropriate types are not readily located and are expensive to use.

Also, nematodes, despite generally causing noticeable signs on the roots of plants, are little understood by the agricultural sector.

It is interesting that almost half (44%) of agrodealers chose their selling prices according to wholesalers’ prices, and only 8% use official government advice.

It is uncertain if this is an indication that local and national government could be engaging more with small agrodealer businesses.

It is within their mandate. The government, through the Crop Protection Department in the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal, Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) is responsible for the regulation of agricultural inputs to ensure farmers get value for their money.

The government administration, through the chief commissioner of Agricultural inspection and the principal Agricultural Inspectorate, lacks funding and manpower to ensure proper engagement with agrochemical suppliers15.

However, it is apparent that the private industry has a firm grip on price regulation in Uganda. Most agrodealers (93%) realise there are

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economic & social samples, or know the type or even the brand of chemical needed, thereby making a proportion of the agrodealers management recommendations more appropriate and faster.

Seventy seven per cent of agrodealers have farmers returning to complain if the product sold did not have the desired effect. Farmers are therefore keen to let their agrodealer know if the product has not worked.

Recommendations and conclusions This study reviews Ugandan agrodealers’ situation and interaction with their clients. This is a developing and complex industry. Agrodealers find themselves in a unique position: they need to possess a great deal of knowledge to help with their clients’ enquiries, but they also need to make a living.

Table 3 Advisory role of agrodealers, customer buying habits and satisfaction serious problems caused by counterfeit chemicals, which are of unknown, generally foreign, provenance. This could explain the highly favourable statistic relating to the selling of chemicals in their original containers.

The fact that 84% were concerned that they had potentially bought some counterfeit chemicals in the past reinforces the importance of the problem. Accordingly, 85% of agrodealers believe that the agrochemical industry should be controlled by government, a statement of faith that public involvement could rid the industry of some of its most serious problems. A joint Croplife, National Environment Management Authority and Ministry of Agriculture Workshop entitled the “Obsolete Stock/Empty Containers” was arranged in June 201214.

Agrodealers are generally the source of advice for most rural farmers. In this study, 98% of agrodealers gave plant pest and disease advice (61% thinking that the right advice was more important that the right chemical) and 97% gave health and safety advice related to the use of chemicals (50% had already followed a course on Safe Handling and Use of Pesticides).

Discussions between shop owner and customer must therefore consider

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aspects of the farmers’ fields and husbandry before a problem is understood and a solution found.

Indeed, 46% of interviewees stated that customers simply describe the problem on their crop. Consequently, many agrodealers (80%) find themselves visiting customers’ fields in order to understand the problem at first hand.

A farmer’s crop health issues are complex. However, we find that 58% of agrodealers spend between 5 and 10 minutes with their clients, and only 12% of agrodealers spend over half an hour discussing and recommending solutions to a problem. Based on farmer interviews at plant clinics in CABI’s Plantwise initiative15, advisors are encouraged to spend 15 minutes with a farmer in order to get all relevant information, before recommending a product.

However, a shop owner needs to see an adequate number of clients. He is unable to spend all day with one customer and visit his field to the detriment of other clients. Most of the products being sold are seed, so these transactions are relatively quick, by comparison with plant health problems. Agrodealers’ jobs are also aided by the fact that customers sometimes bring affected plant

There is a close relationship between farmers and agrodealers. Field visits are regularly arranged, and farmers will visit the agrodealer to let him know if the product has not worked. The frequency of the field trips might be small, but that they happen at all indicates that the agrochemical industry is a maturing one, developing services to meet the demands of the clients. It would be interesting to find out what agrodealers offer their clients if the product has not worked, and this could be the subject of a future study.

A study of agrodealers’ knowledge of pests and diseases and the agrochemicals they sell would also be particularly relevant to plan development of an approved training programme, or qualification for agrodealers and their shops. For the moment, it seems international NGOs, such as UNADA or CropLife funded by AGRA and IFDC, are the only organisations committed to training agrodealers.

In Uganda, many agrodealers do not have the relevant licenses, mainly due to the limited infrastructure available for their approval and release16.

A focused study on the professional pathways for agrodealers would be very helpful and would highlight the problems in the existing infrastructure to improve support. In the UK, BASIS17 is an independent organisation set up to establish and assess standards in the pesticide industry and the professional competence of staff. A similar system

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economic & social could perhaps be implemented in future to enhance and manage Ugandan agrodealer professional standards.

This survey provides no information on the ownership structure of the agrodealer network. Although the majority of agrodealers understand the threat that counterfeit, or obsolete, chemicals constitute, they are still present within the agrochemical industry. The survey highlights this problem and raises questions of trading standards and the role of the major agrochemical companies in Uganda to control the flow of these illegal chemicals.

In Uganda, the link between agrodealers, government and the private industry is loose and uncoordinated. The agricultural inspectorate in Uganda should be promoting an environment where constructive and intensive dialogue between all relevant stakeholders is a regular occurrence. Liaison between these organisations is vital to ensure that agricultural and political benefits are fully recognised and accepted throughout the agrochemical industry.

Agrodealers play an unequivocally important role in agriculture. This survey provides basic information on their role and structure in Uganda. A next step would be to find out more about the industry, particularly as agricultural productivity and food

security are such an important part of the wider political, economic and social politics.

Environment (Natural Resource Management and Policy) Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995; ISBN 10: 0792395220

References

9. Wilson C., Tisdell C.; why farmers continue to use pesticides despite environmental, health and sustainability costs. Ecological Economics, Volume 39, Issue 3, 2001

1. Information on Uganda; Index Mundi (2012) http://www.indexmundi.com/uganda/ 2. Summary report on Uganda Census of Agriculture (2008-2009); Uganda Bureau of Statistics, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries (MAAIF). Volume 1, December 2010 3. UNADA personal communication October 2010 4. Danielsen S., Centeno J., López J., Lezama L., Varela G., Castillo P., Narváez C., (2011) Innovations In Plant Health Services In Nicaragua: From Grassroots Experiment To A Systems Approach; Journal of International +Development, J. Int. Dev. Published online in Wiley Online Library, (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/jid.1786 5. National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) Phase I and Phase II programme, Uganda http://www.naads.or.ug/ (Accessed 07/11/2012) 6. Chinsinga B.; FAC Working Paper 31.

Agrodealers, Subsidies and Rural Market Development in Malawi: A Political Economy Enquiry. Future Agricultures Consortium, Brighton, UK 2011 7. Frampton G., K., Jänsch S., Scott-Fordsmand J., J., Römbke J., van den Brink P. J.; Effects of pesticides on soil invertebrates in laboratory studies: A review and analysis using species sensitivity distributions. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Volume 25, Issue 9, 2006 8. Pingali P., L., Roger P., A.; Impact of Pesticides on Farmer Health and the Rice

10. Odame, Hannington, Muange E.; "Can Agrodealers Deliver the Green Revolution in Kenya?" IDS Bulletin 42.4, 2011 11. Okello B., Paruzzolo S., Mehra R., Shetty A., Weiss E.; Agrodealerships in Western Kenya: How Promising for Agricultural Development and Women Farmers? International Center for Research on Women, 2012 12. Bradburn N.,M., Sudman S., Wansink B.; Asking Questions: The Definitive Guide to Questionnaire Design - For Market Research, Political Polls, and Social and Health Questionnaires (Research Methods for the Social Sciences); Jossey Bass Publishing, 2004, ISBN – 10: 078797088-3 13. Ugandan Bureaux Of Statistics 2012; Government of Uganda http://www.ubos.org/index.php?st=pagerelations&id=16&p=related%20pages:Demographi c%20Statistics (Accessed 13/02/2012) 14. Training report on Counterfeit and Illegal Pesticides Training in Uganda. June 2012 http://www.croplifeafrica.org/?module=pages &method=view&conf[page]=website_countries_display&conf[id]=62 (Accessed 07/11/2012) 15. CABI Plantwise initiative. www.plantwise.org (accessed 28/11/2012) 16. UNADA Personal communication (October 2010) 17. BASIS (Registration) Ltd. Promoting Professional Standards http://www.basisreg.com/about.aspx (Accessed 26/11/2012)

Grassland on the shore of Victoria Lake. Entebbe, Uganda.

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Comment & Opinion

The global, environmental and economic impact of biotech crops 1996-2010 Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot PG Economics Ltd, Dorchester,UK, DT2 9NB Summary This is a review of published (mostly) peer-reviewed scientific and economic evidence relating to some of the important economic and environmental impacts of biotech crops, following their commercial introduction in 1996. It examines the economic impacts on yields, key costs of production, direct farm income and the production base of the four main crops of soybeans, maize, cotton and canola. The analysis shows that there have been substantial net economic benefits at the farm level, amounting to $14 billion in 2010 and $78.4 billion for the fifteen year period. Biotech crops have also made important contributions to increasing global production of the four main crops; adding, for example, 97.5 million tonnes and 159 million tonnes to global production of soybeans and maize respectively. It also examines the impact of changes in pesticide use and greenhouse gas emissions arising from the use of biotech crops. The technology has reduced pesticide spraying by 443 million kg (9.1%) and, as a result, decreased the environmental impact associated with herbicide and insecticide use on these crops (as measured by the indicator the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) by 17.9 %. The technology has also significantly reduced the greenhouse gas emissions from this cropping area, which, in 2010, was equivalent to removing 8.6 million cars from the roads.

Keywords: Herbicide tolerance, glyphosate, insect resistance, maize, soybeans, cotton, canola, pesticides, greenhouse gas emissions

Abbreviations GM genetically modified; HT herbicide tolerance; IR insect resistance; Bt Bacillus thuringiensis; NT no tillage cultivation; RT reduced tillage cultivation; Mt million tonnes; G billion, 1000 M, or 10 GHG greenhouse gases.

9;

Literature Citations This paper presents an assessment of the global economic and environmental impact of GM crops

since their commercial introduction in 1996. It is based on two papers by the authors in the peer reviewed journal GM Crops1. This article is a

synopsis of those specific papers, so we have adopted a slightly different referencing system to that normally adopted.

Introduction Although the first commercial genetically modified (GM) crops were planted in 1994 (tomatoes), 1996 was the first year in which a significant area of crops containing GM traits was planted (1.66 million hectares). Since then there has been a significant increase in plantings and by 2010/11, the global planted area reached over 139 million hectares.

GM traits have largely been adopted in four main crops; canola, maize, cotton and soybeans, although small areas of GM sugar beet (adopted in the USA and Canada since 2008), papaya (in the USA since 1999 and China since 2008) and squash (in the USA since 2004) have also been planted. GM traits accounted for 42% of the global plantings to soybeans, maize, cotton and canola in 2010.

The main traits so far commercialised have essentially been derived from bacteria and convey: Tolerance to specific herbicides (notably glyphosate and glufosinate) in maize, cotton, canola (spring oilseed rape) and soybeans2. The technology allows for the ‘over the top’ spraying of crops with the trait, of these specific broad-spectrum herbicides, that target both grass and broad-leaved weeds; Resistance to specific insect pests of maize and cotton. This ‘Bt’ technology offers farmers resistance in the plants to major pests such as corn borers and rootworm (e.g. Ostrinia nubilalis, Diabrotica spp.) in maize and bollworm/budworm (Heliothis spp.) in cotton.

The analysis provides an assessment of some of the key economic and environmental impacts associated with the global adoption of biotech crops. The aim is to contribute to greater understanding of the impact of this technology and facilitate more informed decision making, especially in countries where crop biotechnology is currently not permitted.

The environmental impact analysis focuses on: Changes in the amount of insecticides and herbicides applied to the biotech crops relative to conventionally grown alternatives and; The contribution of biotech crops towards reducing global GHG emissions.

It is widely accepted that increases in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are detrimental to the global environment3. Therefore, if the adoption of crop biotechnology contributes to a

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Comment & Opinion reduction in the level of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, this represents a positive development for the world.

The economic analysis concentrates on farm income because this is a primary driver of adoption amongst farmers and also quantifies the (net) production impact of the technology. The authors recognise that an economic assessment could examine a broader range of potential impacts (e.g. on labour usage, households, local communities and economies). However, these are not included because undertaking such an exercise would add considerably to the length of the paper and an economic assessment of wider economic impacts would probably merit a separate assessment in its own right.

Methodology

conventional crops.

he results are based on extensive analysis of existing farm level impact data for GM crops.

Whilst primary data for impacts of commercial cultivation were not available for every crop, in every year and for each country, a substantial body of representative data are available and these have been used as the basis for the analysis. Further details of the methodology, data sources and references4 can be found in the two GM Crops journal papers referred to above.

In maize, herbicide and insecticide use decreased by 212.8 million kg (1996-2010) and the associated environmental impact of pesticide use decreased, due to a combination of reduced insecticide use (37.7%) and a switch to more environmentally benign herbicides (11.5%). In canola, biotech farmers reduced herbicide active ingredient use by14.4 million kg (18.2%) and the associated environmental impact of herbicide use on this crop area fell by 27.6%, again owing to use of more environmentally benign herbicides.

T

Readers of this paper are therefore encouraged to read the original papers (available from the journal on open access). The considerable body of literature examining the impact of the technology, available in peer reviewed literature forms the cornerstone of this analysis.

The environmental benefits associated with reduced insecticide and herbicide use (Table 2) shows a

reduction between 1996 and 2010, respectively in developed and developing countries of 55% and 45%.

Over three-quarters (76%) of the environmental gains in developing countries have been from the use of GM IR cotton.

In some regions where GM HT crops have been widely grown, some farmers (eg, in the USA and Argentina) have relied too much on the use of single herbicides, like glyphosate, for weed control and this has contributed to the development of resistant weed populations.

The development of weeds resistant to herbicides, or of gene flow from crops to wild relatives, is not new in agriculture and is, therefore, not an

Results and discussion Environmental impacts of insecticide and herbicide use Since 1996, the use of pesticides on the biotech crop area has been reduced by 443 million kg of active ingredient (9.1% reduction), and the environmental impact associated with herbicide and insecticide use on these crops, as measured by the EIQ indicator5, has reduced by17.9% (Table 1).

In absolute terms, the largest environmental gain has been associated with the adoption of GM insect resistant (IR) cotton (a 23.9% reduction in the volume of active ingredient used and a 26% reduction in the EIQ indicator 1996-2010). This reflects the significant reduction in insecticide use that the technology facilitated in what has traditionally been an intensive user of insecticides.

The quantity of herbicide active ingredient used in biotech soybean crops also decreased by 34 million kg (1996-2010), a 1.7% reduction, whilst the overall environmental impact associated with herbicide use on biotech soybeans decreased by a significantly larger 16.4%. This highlights the switch in herbicides used with most GM herbicide tolerant (HT) crops to active ingredients with a more environmentally benign profile than those generally used on

Table 1 Effect of changes in the use of herbicides and insecticides in global biotech crops, 1996-2010 (ai, active ingredient; EIQ, environmental impact quotient â&#x20AC;&#x201C; see Kovach et al., 1992

Table 2 Effect of lower insecticide and herbicide use 1996-2010 in biotech crops for developing compared with developed countries.

(EIQ, environmental impact quotient â&#x20AC;&#x201C; see Kovach et al., 1992

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Comment & Opinion issue unique to the adoption of crop biotechnology. All weeds have the ability to adapt to selection pressure, and there are examples of weeds that have developed resistance to a number of herbicides and also to mechanical methods of weed control (e.g. prostrate weeds such as dandelion which can survive mowing).

Weed resistance occurs mostly when the same herbicide(s), with the same mode of action, has been applied on a continuous basis over a number of years.

There are hundreds of resistant weed species confirmed in the International Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds (www.weedscience.org). Worldwide, there are 24 weed species that are6 resistant to glyphosate, compared to 107 weed species resistant to ALS herbicides and 69 weed species resistant to triazine herbicides, such as atrazine.

Several of the confirmed glyphosate resistant weed species have also been found in areas where no GM HT crops have been grown. For example, there are currently 13 weeds recognised in the US as exhibiting resistance to glyphosate, of which two are not associated with glyphosate tolerant crops.

A few of the glyphosate resistant species, such as marestail (Conyza canadensis) and palmer pigweed (Amaranthus palmeri) are now widespread in the USA. In Argentina, development of resistance to glyphosate in weeds such as Johnson grass (Sorghum halepense) is also reported.

Where this has occurred, farmers have had to adopt reactive weed management strategies incorporating a mix of herbicides. While the overall level of weed resistance in areas planted to GM HT crops is still relatively low, growers of GM HT crops are increasingly being advised to be more proactive and include other herbicides in combination with glyphosate in their weed management programmes, even where weed resistance to glyphosate has not been found, in order to reduce the risk of resistance developing.

This is because proactive weed management programmes generally require fewer herbicides and are more economical than reactive programmes.

The adoption of both reactive and proactive weed management programmes in GM HT crops has already begun to influence the mix,

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total amount and overall environmental profile of herbicides applied to GM HT soybeans, cotton, maize and canola and this is reflected in the data presented in this paper.

For example, in the USA GM HT soybean crop in 2010, just over a third of the area received an additional treatment of one of the following active ingredients7, 2 4 D, chlorimuron, clethodim and flumioxazin, compared with 13% of the crop which received one of these four herbicides in 2006.

As a result, the average amount of herbicide active ingredient applied to GM HT soybeans in the US (per hectare) has increased by about a third over the last five years (the associated EIQ value has increased by about 27%).

Nevertheless, this compares with the average amount of herbicide active ingredient applied to conventional (non GM) soybean, which increased by 15% over the same period (the associated EIQ value for conventional soybeans increased by 27%). The increase in the use of herbicides on conventional soybeans in the US can also be partly attributed to the development of weed resistance to herbicides commonly used and highlights that the development of weed resistance to herbicides is a problem faced by all farmers, regardless of production method.

Currently, the environmental profile of GM HT crops (as measured by the EIQ indicator) continues to represent an improvement compared to the conventional alternative.

Impact on GHG emissions The scope for biotech crops contributing to lower levels of GHG emissions comes from two principle sources8: a) Reduced fuel use from less frequent herbicide or insecticide applications and a reduction in the energy used in soil cultivation. The fuel savings associated with making fewer spray runs (relative to conventional crops) and the switch to conservation, reduced and no-till farming systems reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 1,715 million kg, arising from reduced fuel use of 642.2 million litres in 2010 (Table 3). The largest reductions in carbon dioxide emissions have come from GM HT soybeans (about 85% of total savings), particularly in South America.

Over the period 1996 to 2010, the cumulative permanent reduction in fuel use of 4,582 million litres has been

equivalent to 12,232 million kg of carbon dioxide.. b) The use of ‘no-till’ and ‘reduced-till’ farming systems. These production systems have increased significantly with the adoption of GM HT crops.

The technology has improved growers’ ability to control competing weeds, reducing the need to rely on soil cultivation and seed-bed preparation as means of weed control. As a result, in addition to reduced fuel use for tillage, soil quality is enhanced and soil erosion reduced. In turn more carbon remains in the soil and this leads to lower GHG emissions.

Based on savings arising from the rapid adoption of no till/reduced tillage farming systems in North and South America, an extra 4,805 million kg of soil carbon is estimated to have been sequestered in 2010 alone (equivalent to 17,634 million tonnes of carbon dioxide that has not been released into the global atmosphere: Table 3).

Since 1996, the equivalent of 133,639 million tonnes of carbon dioxide has not been released into the global atmosphere9. The reader should note that this increase in soil carbon is based on savings arising from the rapid adoption of NT/RT farming systems in North and South America (Argentina and Southern Brazil), for which the availability of GM HT technology, has been cited by many farmers as an important facilitator.

GM HT technology has, therefore, probably been an important contributor to increased soil carbon sequestration, no doubt aided by the availability of relatively cheap generic glyphosate (the real price of glyphosate fell threefold between 1995 and 2000 once patent protection for the product expired). Cumulatively, the amount of carbon sequestered may be higher than these estimates due to year-on-year benefits to soil quality (e.g. increased organic matter, reduced soil erosion, greater water retention and reduced levels of nutrient run off).

However, it is equally likely that the total cumulative soil sequestration gains have been lower because only a proportion of the crop area will have remained in NT/RT. It is not possible to estimate confidently cumulative soil sequestration gains that take into account reversions to conventional tillage because of a lack of data.

Consequently, the estimate of 133,639 million tonnes of carbon dioxide not

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Comment & Opinion equivalent of 11.9% to the $42 billion value of the global cotton crop in 2010.

Table 3. Effect of biotech crops on fuel usage, carbon dioxide emissions and carbon sequestration in 2010.

Note: It is assumed an average family car produces 150 grams of carbon dioxide per km and covers 15,000 km/year producing 2.250kg of CO2/year.

released into the atmosphere should be treated with caution as it is not possible to confidently estimate the probable soil carbon sequestration gains since 1996.

These carbon dioxide emission reductions for 2010 are equivalent: To removing 0.76 million cars from the road.

The additional probable soil carbon sequestration gains are equivalent to removing 7.84 million cars from the roads.

Impact on farm income GM technology has had a significant positive impact on farm income derived from a combination of

enhanced productivity and efficiency gains (Table 4).

In 2010, the direct global farm income benefit from biotech crops was $14 billion. This is equivalent to adding 4.3% to the value of global production of the soybean, maize, canola and cotton crops. Since 1996, GM technology has increased farm incomes by $78.4 billion.

The largest gains in farm income in 2010 are from cotton, largely from yield gains, with $5 billion of additional income generated by GM insect resistant (GM IR) cotton in 2010.

This is equivalent to adding 14% to the value of the crop in the biotech growing countries, or adding the

Substantial gains have also arisen in maize through a combination of higher yields and lower costs. In 2010, maize farm income in the biotech adopting countries increased by almost $5 billion and since 1996, the sector has benefited from an additional $21.6 billion. The 2010 income gains are equivalent to adding 6% to the value of the maize crop in these countries, or 3.5% to the $139 billion value of total global maize production. This is a substantial increase in value added terms for two new maize seed technologies. Significant increases in farm incomes have also resulted in the soybean and canola crops. GM HT technology in soybeans increased farm incomes by $3.3 billion in 2010, and since 1996 has delivered over $28 billion of extra farm income (the highest cumulative increase in farm income of the biotech traits). For canola, (largely in North American) an additional $2.7 billion has been generated between 1996 and 2010. At the country level (Table 5), US farmers have been the largest beneficiaries of higher incomes, realising over $35 billion in extra income between 1996 and 2010. This is not surprising given that US farmers were the first to make widespread use of GM crop technology and for several years the GM adoption levels in all four US crops have been in excess of 80%.

Important farm income benefits ($17.7 billion) have occurred in South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay), mostly from GM technology in soybeans and maize. GM IR cotton has also been responsible for an additional $20 billion additional income for cotton farmers in China and India.

In 2010, 54.8% of the farm income benefits were earned by farmers in developing countries. The vast majority of these gains have been from GM IR cotton and GM HT soybeans.

Over the fifteen years, 1996-2010, the cumulative farm income gain derived by developing country farmers was $39.24 billion, equal to 50% of the total farm income during this period.

Table 4. Global farm income benefits from growing biotech crops 1996-2010.

Note: 1000 Million = 1 billion; All values are nominal and others are excluded from the total. Farm income calculations are net of key variable costs (e.g, seed and crop protection) Others: virus resistant papaya and squash and HT sugar beet which are excluded from totals.

The cost to farmers for accessing GM technology, across the four main biotech crops, in 2010, was equal to 28% of the total value of technology gains (defined as the farm income gains referred to above plus the cost of the technology payable to the seed supply chain10).

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Comment & Opinion opposed to improving yields, the improved weed control has, nevertheless, delivered higher yields in some (especially developing12) countries (e.g. HT soybeans in Romania, Bolivia and Mexico, HT corn in Argentina and the Philippines).

Biotech HT soybeans have also facilitated the adoption of no tillage production systems, shortening the production cycle. This enables many farmers in South America to plant a crop of soybeans immediately after a wheat crop in the same growing season. This second crop, additional to traditional soybean production, has added 96.1 Mt to soybean production in Argentina and Paraguay between 1996 and 2010 (accounting for 98.5% of the total biotech-related additional soybean production).

Table 5. Overall benefits of GM crop farm income 1996-2010 for selected countries (M US $).

Notes: 1) All values are nominal. 2) Farm income calculations are net of key variable costs (eg, seed and crop protection). N/a = not applicable; 3) The USA total figure also includes $M296.4 for other crops/traits; 4) Table excludes extra farm income of $M4.3 from GM HT sugar beet in Canada; $M655.0 and $M223.1 from GM HT soya in Paraguay and Bolivia respectively; $M10,911.2 and $M9395.2 for GM IR cotton in China and India respectively.

5) 1000 Million = 1 billion.

In developing countries the total cost was equal to 17% of total technology gains compared with 37% in developed countries.

Whilst circumstances vary between countries, the higher share of total technology gains accounted for by farm income in developing countries relative to developed countries reflects factors such as weaker provision and enforcement of intellectual property rights in developing countries and the higher average level of farm income gain per hectare derived by farmers in developing countries compared to those in developed countries.

Crop production effects Based on the yield impacts used in the direct farm income benefit calculations above and taking account of the second soybean crop facilitation in South America (see below), biotech crops have added important volumes

to global production of corn, cotton, canola and soybeans since 1996 (Table 6).

The biotech IR traits, used in corn and cotton, have accounted for 98% of the additional corn production and 99.4% of the additional cotton production. Positive yield impacts from the use of this technology have occurred in all user countries (except for GM IR cotton in Australia11) when compared to average yields derived from crops using conventional technology (such as application of insecticides and seed treatments). The average yield impact across the total area planted to these traits over the 15 years since 1996 has been +9.6% for maize and +14.4% for cotton (Figure 1). Although the primary impact of biotech HT technology has been to provide more cost effective (less expensive) and easier weed control, as

Table 6. Additional crop production arising from positive yield effects of biotech crops (Mt).

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Concluding comments During the last 15 years, the adoption of crop biotechnology (by 15.4 million farmers in 2011) has delivered important economic and environmental benefits by facilitating more environmentally friendly farming practices.

More specifically: biotech IR traits have mostly delivered higher incomes through improved yields, and environmental gains, mostly from decreased use of insecticides; The gains from biotech HT traits have come from a combination of effects. The farm income gains have mostly arisen from reduced costs of production. Environmental improvements are associated with the increased use of more environmentally benign herbicides and the facilitation of changes in farming systems. Thus, biotech HT technology (especially in soybeans) has played an important role in enabling farmers to capitalise on the availability of a low cost, broadspectrum herbicide (glyphosate) and in turn, facilitated the move away from conventional to low/no-tillage production systems in both North and South America. This change in production system has delivered reduced levels of GHG emissions (from reduced tractor fuel use and additional soil carbon sequestration).

Over reliance on the use of glyphosate by some farmers, in some regions, has contributed to the development of weed resistance.

As a result, farmers are increasingly adopting a mix of reactive and proactive weed management strategies incorporating a mix of herbicides.

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Comment & Opinion undertake. This factor should be taken into account when using the estimates presented in this paper 10.The cost of the technology accrues to the seed supply chain including sellers of seed to farmers, seed multipliers, plant breeders, distributors and the GM technology providers.

11.This reflects the levels of Heliothis spp (boll and bud worm pests) pest control previously obtained with intensive insecticide use.

The main benefit and reason for adoption of this technology in Australia has arisen from significant cost savings (on insecticides) and the associated environmental gains from reduced insecticide use.

12.But not exclusively.

Figure 1. Average increase in yield (%) of biotech IR traits 1996-2010 by country and trait (IRCB, resistant to corn boring pests; IRCRW, resistant to corn rootworm; IR, insect resistant cotton.

Nevertheless, the overall environmental gains arising from the use of biotech crops have been, and continue to be, substantial.

Even though there is a considerable body of evidence, in peer reviewed literature, and summarised in this paper, that quantifies these positive economic and environmental impacts of crop biotechnology, many remain opposed to the technology.

These groups, who are ideologically opposed to GM technology and often have vested interests in other forms of agricultural production, continue to denigrate GM technology. Almost all of the papers cited by these groups to ‘support’ their claims tend not to be published in peer review journals.

Some are inaccurate or misleading and make inappropriate use of official data.

The ‘inconvenient truth’ that those opposed to GM crop technology fail to address is that the rate of adoption and use of crop biotechnology in global agriculture since the mid-1990s has been rapid and widespread.

The analysis in this paper provides insights into the reasons why so many farmers around the world have adopted and continue to use the technology. Readers are encouraged to read the peer reviewed papers cited, and the many others who have published on this subject (and listed in the references of Brookes and Barfoot) and to draw their own conclusions.

References

1.GM Crops and Food 3:2, p 1-9 April-June 2012 (environmental impact paper) and Vol. 4, Oct/Dec 2012 forthcoming for economic impact paper. Available at www.landesbio-

science.com/journal/gmcrops 2.Also sugar beet in North America 3.See for example Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2006) 4.The total number of reference sources used totals about 150, most of which are from peer reviewed journals 5.The environmental impact quotient (EIQ), developed by Kovach et al (1992), effectively integrates the various environmental impacts of individual pesticides into a single ‘field value per hectare’. The EIQ value is multiplied by the amount of pesticide active ingredient (ai) used per hectare to produce a field EIQ value.

For example, the EIQ rating for glyphosate is 15.33. By using this rating multiplied by the amount of glyphosate used per hectare (e.g., a hypothetical example of 1.1 kg applied per ha), the field EIQ value for glyphosate would be equivalent to 16.86/ha. The EIQ indicator provides an improved assessment of the impact of GE crops on the environment when compared to only examining changes in volume of active ingredient applied, because it draws on some of the key toxicity and environmental exposure data related to individual products, as applicable to impacts on farm workers, consumers and ecology.

6. www.weedscience.org - accessed July 2012 7.The four most used herbicide active ingredients used on soybeans after glyphosate (source: derived from GfK Kynetec) 8.The methodology used to assess impact on greenhouse gas emissions combines reviews of literature relating to changes in fuel and tillage systems and carbon emissions coupled with evidence from the development of relevant biotech crops and their impact on both fuel use and tillage systems. Reductions in the level of GHG emissions associated with the adoption of biotech crops are acknowledged in a wide body of literature including American Soybean Association Conservation Tillage Study. 2001, Fabrizzi K et al. 2003, Jasa P 2002, Reicosky D 1995, Robertson G et al.

2000, Johnson et al. 2005, Leibig et al. 2005 and West T. Post W. 2002 9.These estimates are based on fairly conservative assumptions. Also, some of the additional soil carbon sequestration gains from RT/NT systems may be lost if subsequent ploughing of the land occurs. Estimating the possible losses that may arise from subsequent ploughing would be complex and difficult to

References cited in footnotes in this paper American Soybean Association Conservation Tillage Study (2001) http://soygrowers.com/ctstudy/ctstudy_files/fra me.htm.

Brookes, G & Barfoot, P (2012) Global Impact of Biotech Crops: Environmental Effects, 1996-2010. GM Crops and Food 3: 2 AprilJune 2012, p 1-9. Available on-line at http://www.landesbioscience.com/journal/gmc rops.

Brookes, G & Barfoot, P (2012) The income and production effects of biotech crops globally 1996-2010. GM Crops and Food 4: Oct-Dec 2012 (in press). Available on-line at http://www.landesbioscience.com/journal/gmc rops Fabrizz,i K., Moron, A. & Garan, F. (2003) Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Organic Fractions in Degraded VS Non-Degraded Mollisols in Argentina. Soil Science Society of America Journal. 67:1831-1841.

GfK Kynetec (2012) USA Pesticide usage farm panel dataset (annually updated). www.gfk.com Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2006) Chapter 2: Generic Methodologies Applicable to Multiple LandUse Categories. Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Volume 4. Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use. (http://www.ipccnggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/pdf/4_Volume4 /V4_02_Ch2_Generic.pdf).

Jasa P. (2002) Conservation Tillage Systems, Extension Engineer, University of Nebraska.

Reicosky D. (1995) Conservation tillage and carbon cycling: soil as a source or sink for carbon. University of Davis, USA. Johnson et al. (2005) Greenhouse gas contributions and mitigation potential of agriculture in the central USA. Soil Tillage Research.

83. 73-94.

Kovach, J. C. et al (1992). A method to measure the environmental impact of pesticides. New York's Food and Life Sciences Bulletin. NYS Agricul. Exp. Sta. Cornell University, Geneva, NY, 139. 8 pp. Annually updated http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/publications/EIQ.html Leibig et al. (2005) Greenhouse gas contributions and mitigation potential of agriculture practices in north-western USA and Western Canada. Soil Tillage Research. 83. 25-52.

West T. & Post W. (2002) Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration Rates by Tillage and Crop Rotation: A Global Analysis. Soil Science Society of American Journal. 66 November/December: 930-1046.

Robertson, G., P, E & Harwood R. (2000) Greenhouse Gases in Intensive Agriculture: Contributions of Individual Gases to the Radioactive Forces of the Atmosphere. Science.

289, No. 5486, 1922-1925.

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