2000-2001 ANNUAL REPORT Biotechnology: Two Perspectives

Director General's Introduction

Per Pinstrup-Andersen, Director General IFPRI

IT IS COMMON to speak of the haves and the have-nots. The material goods that we, the relatively well-off, have at our disposal are, of course, nearly endless, but one of our greatest luxuries is the freedom to make choices about our lives. These choices are obvious when it comes to our diets. Our grocery stores are filled to brimming with foods to choose from, and the quantity and quality of the food we eat are, for the most part, entirely up to us.

In poor countries, millions of people would like to feed their children more and healthier foods, but for them this is, at present, an empty wish. If money helps to buy choices, poverty certainly removes them. Poor people in poor countries are struggling to grow food in harsh environments, where drought is common, soils are depleted, and pests eat away a significant part of their yields. There is no money for irrigation, fertilizer, and pesticides.

IFPRI works to bring choices to the poor. It does so by analyzing the many economic and technological approaches to eliminating poverty. It examines, for example, whether agroecology, plant nutrient management, biotechnology, conventional technology, or some combination of these means will most improve farmer productivity and income without harming the environment. It also analyzes which economic environment best suits technology adoption and sustainable growth. The knowledge IFPRI contributes on these and other issues enables policymakers to make informed choices about helping the poor.

Recently, genetic engineering—the new tool of agricultural biotechnology—has become a hotly contested topic in the debate on how to grow more food and help people escape poverty. Some people in the developed countries fundamentally distrust genetically engineered foods and the corporations that produce them. As a matter of principle, they do not want to consume such foods, and they are pressing for labeling requirements that will help them avoid

these products. It is their choice. But in some cases, they also want to make choices for others and are working to turn back the technological clock altogether, never mind what benefits genetic modification of crops may offer to poor farmers and consumers in developing countries.

Agricultural biotechnology is no silver bullet. It alone will not solve the world’s food problem—it is just one of many essential tools. Even if this tool can be brought fully to bear on developing more productive and nutritious crops for developing countries, it raises a host of complicated issues for those countries. This report presents essays on two such issues by IFPRI researchers.

As Sherman Robinson and Eugenio Díaz-Bonilla explain in their essay, a number of thorny trade issues surround agricultural biotechnology. What do international trade agreements say about whether countries can limit trade in GM crops and foods? What will it mean for the world trading system, and for developing countries in particular, if consumers in some developed countries refuse to buy GM foods while consumers in other countries are quite willing to buy them? Can the world accommodate separate trading channels for GM and non-GM foods, and at what costs?

Philip Pardey and his coauthors examine how intellectual property rights affect agricultural biotechnology. There is a perception that private corporations in the developed countries, by taking out patents and other forms of protection for their new GM crops and for related genetic materials, are shutting developing-country researchers out of the biotechnology revolution. This essay is a clear-eyed look at the legal and economic situation facing researchers in developing countries who wish to make use of new technologies. Although research on biotechnology accounts for only 2 percent of IFPRI’s budget, IFPRI has chosen this subject for its annual report because of current heated debate and the potential repercussions developed-country policies can have on developing countries.

Research at IFPRI went well beyond biotechnology in 2000. Researchers completed, for example, important work on market reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa. This work offers vital lessons on how reforms can be extended to make markets work better for both poor farmers and poor consumers. Work continued apace on breeding micronutrients into staple food crops in a CGIAR project for which IFPRI is the lead center. This work promises to make staples like rice, wheat, and maize more nutritious, thereby leading to healthier lives for poor people who depend on these food staples. New studies were launched on the efficiency of water use and management in Indonesia and Viet Nam, which should result in valuable insights on how best to manage this scarce resource. And IFPRI researchers took a look at how the World Trade Organization and its rules will affect agriculture and food security in the developing countries. You will find details on these research projects and many others in this report. A fuller picture, past and present, appears on our website, www.ifpri.org.

This report makes it clear that researchers at IFPRI come at the fundamental problem of food insecurity from many different angles. This is because food insecurity is related not only to what farmers can produce and what people can afford to buy in the marketplace, but also to whether farmers have tenure over their land, who is favored by a country’s tax policies, whether farmers gain their livelihoods from one crop or several, and whether poor people can borrow money in times of great need. What links all of these aspects of IFPRI work is the conviction that the poor and hungry in developing countries must be given the means to achieve healthy and productive lives—and that sound research and assessments about what works and what doesn’t work is the essential first step. IFPRI research supports informed choices—the only good choices—for the poor, the public sector, the private sector, and civil society in general. In the end, we wish to see people the world over enjoy the power of informed choice, a power that we, the nonpoor, take for granted. For us this is essential for sustainable development.