Small farmers must benefit, asserts Suman Sahai

A new agricultural technology must have a strong local context to be meaningful and the agenda must be determined by local stakeholders.

There are many indigenous technologies and knowledge systems that work well for rural communities because they are affordable, accessible and communities are skilled in their use. New technologies must neither displace nor diminish such indigenous technologies.

All technologies but especially those related to food and agriculture must be adopted in developing countries only if small farmers and rural communities can benefit from them.

The research goals must be determined by the needs of local agriculture, not imported as a package as is the case currently with Bt (genetically modified insect resistant) and Herbicide Tolerant (HT) crops. A technology developed for industrial agriculture is unlikely to work for resource-poor farmers in developing countries because it is usually more expensive, it can be irrelevant or even harmful and it is alien in its application.

Unsuitable developments

Growing Bt cotton is expensive and has complex requirements: maintaining non-Bt refuges and counting insects to determine when an insecticide spray is required. This places great financial burdens and provides opportunities for things going wrong. 

HT crops constitute a labour-saving technology, which is absolutely wrong for labour-surplus developing countries where agricultural operations like weeding, threshing and winnowing provide much needed wages to an agriculture labour force. In addition, weeds that would be destroyed by herbicide application serve as leafy green vegetables for the family, fodder for livestock and medicinal plants for health and veterinary care in rural areas.

Regulation needed

In the absence of a technically competent, transparent and accountable regulatory system, adoption of agricultural biotechnology, which has environmental, health and socio-economic implications, is not advisable in poor countries.

The adoption of regulated technologies like agricultural biotechnology may not be difficult where regulatory systems can be established and enforced easily. This is not necessarily the case in developing countries where there is a deficit of skilled manpower and finances to run a stringent regulatory system.

To develop new technologies relevant to the poor, the public sector must step up spending to create accessible and affordable public goods. International research and development agencies must support such efforts and intervene in the creation of novel approaches to deal with innovation and intellectual property (IP) so that new technologies do not remain shackled in patents, available only to the rich. Countries should develop sensible domestic IP policies incorporating equity and justice.

Dr Suman Sahai is President of the Gene Campaign in New Delhi, India