[Senate Hearing 111-85]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-85
ALLEVIATING GLOBAL HUNGER: CHALLENGES
AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR U.S. LEADERSHIP
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
INSERT DATE HERE deg.MARCH 24, 2009
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin Republican Leader designee
BARBARA BOXER, California BOB CORKER, Tennessee
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
JIM WEBB, Virginia JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
David McKean, Staff Director
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Republican Staff Director
(ii)
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C O N T E N T S
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Page
Beckmann, David, President, Bread For The World, Washington, DC.. 18
Prepared statement......................................... 19
Bertini, Hon. Catherine A., Former Executive Director, World Food
Programme, Syracuse, NY........................................ 7
Prepared statement......................................... 11
Ejeta, Gebisa, Professor of Agronomy, Purdue University, West
Lafayette, IN.................................................. 49
Prepared statement......................................... 52
Glickman, Hon. Daniel R., Former Secretary of Agriculture,
Washington, DC................................................. 9
Prepared statement......................................... 11
Kerry, Hon. John F., U.S. Senator From Massachusetts............. 1
Lugar, Hon. Richard G., U.S. Senator From Indiana................ 4
Paarlberg, Robert, Professor Of Political Science, Wellesley
College, Wellesley, MA......................................... 20
Prepared statement......................................... 22
Price, Edwin, Associate Vice Chancellor and Director, The Norman
Borlaug Institute For International Agriculture, College
Station, TX.................................................... 42
Prepared statement......................................... 45
(iii)
ALLEVIATING GLOBAL HUNGER:
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
FOR U.S. LEADERSHIP
----------
TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:37 a.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John F. Kerry
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Kerry, Casey, Shaheen, Lugar, and Risch.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. KERRY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
The Chairman. The hearing will come to order. Thank you all
for your patience, and thank you for being here with us today.
We have two really interesting panels today on a topic of
enormous global importance, certainly one of the great physical
diplomatic challenges of our time, but also one of the great
moral challenges that the world faces today, and that is the
crisis of the persistence of global hunger.
When you stop and think about it, measured against so many
fortunate nations, it's really quite astounding that in 2009
there are over 850 million hungry people in the world. One in
seven people on Earth goes hungry every day, and when we talk
about ``going hungry every day,'' we are talking about real
pain and anguish and suffering that goes with that hunger.
It has been a goal of our country, and of other countries,
to try to alleviate this crisis and the suffering that it
causes. While other threats force themselves into the front
burner and command our attention, hunger and malnutrition
remain the No. 1 risk to health worldwide, a risk that will be
exacerbated by two relatively new driving forces in today's
world; one, the global financial crisis, and two, global
climate change.
We're already having a harder time feeding people, and the
challenge is only growing more complicated. The reality is that
we have a long way to go to achieve the very first millennium
development goal, which is to cut in half by 2015 the
proportion of people in the developing world who suffer from
hunger.
In Africa, things have actually gone backward; one in three
people are malnourished, and food security today is worse than
it was in 1970. Conflict, poor governance, and HIV/AIDS have
all reduced basic access to food. Now drought, aggravated by
climate change, makes the situation even more desperate.
This is important. We need to begin to deal with the
growing impact that climate change will have on our struggle
against hunger. A recent study in Science warns us that as much
as half the world's population could face serious food
shortages by the end of this century, a burden that will
largely be borne by those who have done the least to bring
about climate change.
Last year's food riots were a worrisome sign of how a
crisis in food security can quickly become a national security
issue. The global financial crisis also poses and urgent and an
immediate threat. The World Bank estimates that, as a result of
this crisis, an additional 65 million people will fall below
the $2-per-day poverty line this year, and an additional 53
million will fall below the absolute poverty level of $1.25 per
day.
If food prices spike in the next months, we risk a double-
edged calamity in which farmers in poor countries can't afford
to plant, and buyers can't afford to purchase food. So, we need
to think about this issue now so that we can prevent the next
crisis, instead of simply trying to deal with its consequences.
One of the special challenges of a truly global crisis is
that, at the very moment when our assistance is most critical
in the developing world, we're under the greatest strain to
turn inward and cut our overseas aid budget. To ensure that
we're doing our part to feed the world, we have to take a long
view. We have to resist the urge to abdicate our responsibility
as an economic and moral leader. Our foreign assistance budget
directly impacts the number of people that we can help to feed.
Moreover, nothing will do more over the long run to address
global hunger than fighting poverty. That's why we must
demonstrate our commitment by fully funding the President's
international affairs budget and initiating a foreign-aid
reform process, which I'm already in discussions with Senator
Lugar and our counterparts in the House and the administration
about, and also, I've been having discussions with Senator
Conrad and the budget folks with respect to the urgency of
holding on to as much of the President's request as possible. I
intend to look closely at introducing authorization legislation
to ensure that we have a strong, effective aid program that can
tackle the key challenges of our day.
It's a pleasure to be here with my friend and colleague
Senator Lugar, who has shown a great deal of leadership over
time on this issue. He recently introduced, along with Senator
Casey, a food security bill authorizing new resources to fund
agricultural development and alleviate poverty, and I commend
Senator Lugar, and I look forward to working with him on this
important legislation, as well as with my colleague Senator
Casey.
Now, while we need to be ambitious, let's be clear, we
can't tackle hunger alone. We have to engage a multilateral
approach. We have to work in coordination with international
institutions, including the World Food Programme, international
aid organizations, and the World Bank. And we had a very good
meeting with Bob Zoellick, the World Bank, and the committee,
just last week.
Today, we're very fortunate to be able to hear from two
very knowledgeable panels of experts.
Catherine Bertini served as executive director of the World
Food Programme from 1992 to 2002. In 2003, she was awarded the
World Food Prize for the efforts to combat hunger. She recently
cochaired a Chicago Council on Global Affairs Report on
Renewing American Leadership in the Fight Against Global Hunger
and Poverty, with Dan Glickman, who took part in that also, our
former Secretary of Agriculture from 1995 to 2001, and the
congressman from the Kansas Fourth Congressional District for
18 years before that. Reverend David Beckmann is president of
Bread for the World, the leading Christian poverty and hunger
reduction advocacy group. And Dr. Robert Paarlberg is a
professor at Wellesley College and a world-renowned expert on
agriculture, particularly in Africa.
On our second panel, we will hear from two respected
scientists on the subject of food security, Dr. Edwin Price,
associate vice chancellor and director of the Norman Borlaug
Institute for International Agriculture, which studies the
economics of farming systems and advises officials in America,
and across the developing world, on agriculture policy; and Dr.
Gebisa Ejeta is professor of international agriculture at
Purdue University. A native Ethiopian, Dr. Ejeta recently
returned from a year in Nairobi assisting the Rockefeller and
Gates Foundations with the launch of their new joint
initiative, the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa.
So, we really have some outstanding testimony today, and
I'm confident that the committee is going to benefit enormously
from both of these panels and from the hearing this morning.
And I hope, as a country, we will benefit by understanding why
we need to uphold our end of this bargain and make the
commitments that we need to make.
I make an apology up front that at 11 o'clock I have a
meeting that I need to attend briefly, and I will leave the
committee in the good hands of our ranking member, which only
underscores the full bipartisanship of this endeavor. He's
promised me he's not going to pass anything unruly in the time
I'm gone. [Laughter.]
And so, Senator Lugar, I turn the floor to you.
STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD G. LUGAR,
U.S. SENATOR FROM INDIANA
Senator Lugar. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
join youin welcoming our distinguished witnesses today. Each
one of them has made unique contributions to alleviating hunger
and promoting rural development.
I appreciate the leadership Dan Glickman and Catherine
Bertini provided to the recent outstanding Food Security Report
by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. As a former Secretary
of Agriculture and head of the World Food Program, the two have
great authority on hunger issues. And I am pleased, also, that
we are joined by David Beckmann, who has gained so much respect
over many, many years as a consistent and creative advocate on
hunger issues.
Finally, the scholarship of Dr. Robert Paarlberg, a born-
and-raised Hoosier, as I pointed out as we greeted him this
morning, has greatly advanced my own understanding of food
security issues. His book, ``Starved for Science,'' is a must-
read for anyone attempting to understand the global food
dilemma and how political factors are creating obstacles to the
scientific advancements necessary to meet rising demand for
food. Dr. Paarlberg also was a primary contributor to the
Chicago Council's report.
I'm also pleased that we have two distinguished scientists,
as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, on the second round of
hearings. Dr. Edwin Price, director of the Normal Borlaug
Institute for International Agriculture, has spent a long
career working in the agricultural development field, and Dr.
Gebisa Ejeta, a plant geneticist working with sorghum at Purdue
University, will provide insights on the state of agriculture
in his country of Ethiopia and, more broadly, in Africa.
I would like to also point out, Mr. Chairman, that we
invited the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to be part of
the hearing today, and she was unable to come because of
conflicting schedules, but she writes, in her letter of March
18, 2009, ``Combating hunger is a top priority for this
administration, and for me personally, and I want to express my
sincere appreciation for the leadership you've shown on this
important issue. In his Inaugural Address, President Obama
stated to the people of poor nations that we would work
alongside them to make their farms flourish and to nourish
starved bodies. In addition, during my confirmation testimony,
I called for a move away from reacting to food crises in an ad
hoc fashion, toward making food security a priority in our
development programs. The administration's fiscal year 2010
budget request recognizes the need to continue and expand our
efforts on food security. We will also work to ensure that our
partners follow through on commitments they made on food
security at the 2008 G8 Summit.''
I appreciate very much Secretary Clinton's comments, which
are very appropriate for our hearing today.
We live in a world, as you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, where
nearly a billion people suffer from chronic food insecurity,
with an estimated 25,000 people dying each day from
malnutrition-related causes. And health experts advise us that
chronic hunger has major health consequences, including
decreased child survival, impaired cognitive and physical
development of children, and weaker immune-system function,
including resistance to HIV/AIDS. These severe humanitarian
consequences of hunger are sufficient cause for us to
strengthen our approach to global food security.
But, we have an even bigger problem. A dangerous confluence
of factors threatens to severely limit food production in some
region as the world's population continues to expand. Between
1970 and 1990, global aggregate farm yield rose by an average
of 2 percent per year. But, since 1990, aggregate farm yield
has risen by an annual average of just 1.1 percent. The USDA
projects that growth in global farm yields will continue to
fall. These trends threaten the fundamental welfare of a large
share of the world's population.
Here are the basic parameters of the problem:
First, the world's population is projected to increase to
about 9.2 billion people by 2050. Growing affluence in China,
India, and elsewhere is increasing demand for resource-
intensive meat and dairy products. It's estimated the world's
farmers will have to double their output by 2050.
Second, food security is closely tied to volatile energy
costs. Farming is an energy-intensive business. Crops have to
be transported efficiently to market, and petroleum-based
fertilizers and pesticides are widely used. Energy price spikes
in the future are likely to hit with even greater ferocity than
the spike in 2007 and 2008.
Third, water scarcity will worsen in response to population
growth, urbanization, land-use pressures, and the effects of
climate change. According to a recent report by the Royal
Institute of International Affairs, a half-billion people
currently live in countries with chronic water shortages, a
figure that is expected to rise to 4 billion by 2050.
Fourth, climate change is challenging farmers on every
continent to deal with altered weather patterns, novel
agricultural pests, and new water conditions.
Now, despite these alarming trends, investments in
agriculture have tumbled in recent decades. By 2007, rich
countries devoted a mere 4 percent of their foreign assistance
to agriculture. In Africa, which has the most severe food
problems, donor aid to the farm sector plunged from $4.1
billion in 1989 to just $1.9 billion in 2006. Africa's per-
capita production of corn, its most important staple crop, has
dropped by 14 percent since 1980.
Equally troubling are sharp cutbacks in research into new
technologies, farming techniques, and seed varieties that could
increase yields, cope with changing climate-change conditions,
and battle new pests and diseases, and make food more
nutritious.
In recent years, development investment dollars have flowed
to urban areas, because cities were seen as the drivers of
growth. Likewise, some recipient governments have favored
infrastructure projects and urban-focused development
assistance for political reasons. In those nations afflicted by
corruption, agricultural assistance also may offer less of an
opportunity for diversion of funds than an expensive
infrastructure project.
Trade policy of both developed and developing countries is
too often focused on protecting domestic farmers rather than
creating well-functioning global markets. In addition, many
governments, especially in Europe and Africa, have rejected the
biotechnology advancements that are necessary to meet future
demand for food.
Opposition to safe genetic modification technology
contributes to hunger in Africa in the short run and virtually
ensures that much of the continent will lack the tools to adapt
agriculture to changing climate conditions in the long run.
Now, without action, we may experience frequent food riots,
and perhaps warfare, over food resources. We almost certainly
will have to contend with mass migration and intensifying
health issues stemming from malnutrition. Our diplomatic
efforts to maintain peace will be far more difficult wherever
food shortages contribute to extremism and conflict. Our hopes
for economic development in poor countries will continue to be
frustrated if populations are unable to feed themselves. In
short, overcoming hunger should be one of the starting points
for United States foreign policy.
With these factors in mind, Senator Robert Casey and I
introduced the Global Food Security Act of 2009. This bill is
not meant to be a comprehensive solution to the problem, which
is beyond the scope of a single bill, but we are hopeful that
it will serve as a practical starting point for improving
United States and global efforts in this area and as a rallying
point for those who agree that food security should play a much
larger role in our national security strategy.
The bill would make long-range agricultural productivity
and rural development a top development priority. It
establishes a special coordinator for food security and charges
the coordinator with developing a whole-of-government food
security strategy.
Among other goals, the bill attempts to improve research
capacity at foreign universities and the dissemination of
technology through extension services. The bill also improves
the United States emergency response to food crises by creating
a separate emergency food assistance fund that can make local
and regional purchases of food, where appropriate.
As a farmer who has seen agricultural yields more than
triple during my lifetime on my family's farm in Marion County,
Indiana, I have faith that human ingenuity can avert a
Malthusian disaster, but we have to have time for innovations
to take root, and we have to apply all the agricultural tools
at our disposal.
The current effort on food security risks is falling far
short of what is needed to guarantee food security. I believe
the food security challenge is an opportunity for the United
States. We are the undisputable leader in agricultural
technology. A more focused effort on our part to join with
other nations to increase yields, create economic opportunities
for the rural poor, and broaden agricultural knowledge could
strengthen relationships around the world and open up a new era
of United States diplomacy.
I thank the chairman for holding this hearing. I thank
Senator Casey for working with me on the bill. And we look
forward to discussion of the legislation with our witnesses.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Lugar.
If we could ask----
Senator Casey. Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Yes, Senator Casey.
Senator Casey. Just ask consent that my statement be made
part of the record.
The Chairman. Absolutely. And we appreciate, again, as I
said, your efforts on this.
[The prepared statement of Senator Casey follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Robert P. Casey, Jr.,
U.S. Senator From Pennsylvania
I am pleased that the committee is today holding a hearing on
alleviating global hunger and the challenges and opportunities it
presents for the United States. I thank the ranking member, Senator
Lugar, for his efforts to organize this hearing. I have been focused on
this issue for the past year, ever since a dramatic spike in commodity
prices led to food shortages, social unrest, and a rise in the number
of hungry around the world. I worked with other Members of Congress,
including Senator Durbin, to boost the level of U.S. supplemental funds
to address the immediate consequences of the crisis, but recognized
quickly that a ``Band-Aid'' approach to food shortages could only take
us so far.
Accordingly, I was honored to join Senator Lugar in introducing the
Global Food Security Act to overhaul U.S. assistance efforts to better
address the long-term structural deficiencies that prevent developing
nations from attaining self-sufficiency on food production. We must be
prepared to provide the tools, skills, and resources so that farmers in
developing nations have the capacity to grow their own food and export
products to national and international markets. Not only is that
solution more efficient, it is also the only moral choice.
Let me address an obvious question. With all the problems America
is facing at home, why does the need to address global hunger still
matter as an urgent foreign policy priority?
This is a moral issue that strikes at the heart of our
conscience. It is about preserving human life and alleviating
suffering. A report released by the European Union last year
warned that the combination of rising food costs and higher
fuel prices jeopardizes the Millennium Development Goals of
cutting poverty, hunger, and disease in half by 2015.
The cost of not doing anything, of sitting on the sidelines,
is unacceptable and could lead an additional 100 million more
people sliding into hunger.
This is also a national security issue, one that will impact
the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. We have already seen the
devastating effect food shortages have had on developing
countries, sparking violence and riots and putting added
pressure on already fragile and underresourced governments. We
must put in place the tools today to help prevent future food
crises down the road.
Given the new threats we face, the United States can serve its
national security and humanitarian objectives by fully funding overseas
emergency food assistance programs. I know that Senator Lugar has
already summarized the key provisions of the Global Food Security Act,
but let me offer some additional thoughts. Passage of this legislation
would achieve three major objectives:
(1) Enhance coordination within the U.S. Government so that USAID,
the Agriculture Department, and other involved entities are not working
at cross-purposes. We do that by establishing a new position in the
White House, the Special Coordinator for Food Security, who would
report directly to the President and who would forge a comprehensive
U.S. food security strategy;
(2) Expand U.S. investment in the agricultural productivity of
developing nations, so that nations facing escalating food prices can
rely less on emergency food assistance and instead take the steps to
expand their own crop production. A leading agricultural expert
recently estimated that every dollar invested in agricultural research
and development generates $9 worth of food in the developing world. I
am especially grateful to Senator Lugar for his bold proposal, called
HECTARE, to establish a network of universities around the world to
cooperate on agriculture research;
(3) Modernize our system of emergency food assistance, so that it
is more flexible and can provide aid on short notice. We do that by
authorizing a new $500 million fund for U.S. emergency food assistance
and enabling the local or regional purchase of food when appropriate.
I want to thank our witnesses for their continued commitment to
alleviating the global food crisis. I also ask the chairman to enter
into the hearing record today a statement of testimony from the
Alliance for Global Food Security. The Alliance consists of private
voluntary organizations and cooperatives operating in approximately 100
developing nations and would like to share their overall perspective on
how the United States can best respond to the global hunger crisis.
The 111th Congress, working with the Obama administration, has the
opportunity to shape and pass significant legislation to modernize and
expand our food assistance approach. The Foreign Relations Committee is
scheduled to mark up the Global Food Security Act next week, and I look
forward to expedited floor consideration thereafter.
The Chairman. If we could start, Director Bertini, with
your testimony, then Mr. Glickman, Mr. Beckmann, Mr. Paarlberg,
in that order. And I'd ask each of you, just so we can maximize
the give-and-take here, if you'd summarize your comments, in
about 5 minutes. Your full testimony will be placed in the
record as if read in full.
Ms. Bertini.
STATEMENT OF HON. CATHERINE A. BERTINI, FORMER EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME, SYRACUSE, NY
Ms. Bertini. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator
Lugar, members of the committee. Thank you for inviting us;
but, more important, thank you for having this hearing and
taking seriously the issues that the chairman and Senator Lugar
have just raised, because it has been for too long that the
U.S. Government has not put agricultural development, and
especially support for smallholder farmers in developing
countries, high on the agenda for our foreign policy. And the
fact that you are having this discussion today, are debating
this important legislation that Senator Lugar and Senator Casey
have put forward, and have invited us to participate, means
that that has changed, and we thank you and commend you for
that.
Dan Glickman and I have had the opportunity, as has been
stated by the Senators, to co-chair The Chicago Council on
Global Affairs' Global Agricultural Development Project. We
have met and worked with a group of individuals who have been
our colleagues in the U.S. Government and in U.N. organizations
in the past and have put forward suggestions, which are
summarized in our joint testimony for your consideration here
today, and for the consideration of the Obama administration.
We have underlined some of the issues that both Senators
have discussed this morning and how important it is that we
address the needs of the almost 1 billion people who are
desperately hungry, and note that about two-thirds of those
people live in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. We also note
that the vast majority of those families are headed by women,
the vast majority of the farmers are women, and since 80
percent of the farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and 60 percent of
those in Asia are women, the needs of women should be addressed
as well.
Most of these hungry poor live in rural areas, have no
access to roads or transportation, and live in areas that are
challenged with not enough water, inadequate rainfall, and
barely enough, if any, irrigation. These numbers can increase
dramatically if we do not help people be able to help
themselves by increasing their agricultural productivity, but
we think there is an incredible opportunity for the U.S. and
international organizations to work in this area, and we think
what's critically important is U.S. leadership--leadership from
you, from the Senate, from the House, and from the Obama
administration--leadership where the U.S. can say, ``This is
important to us,'' but, as both Senators have said, where we
work together with other countries and other international
organizations.
We note that we have led our food foreign policy with food
aid. And, having run the World Food Program, I know how
important that is and that we help people stay alive with food.
We can't diminish that. We can improve it. But what we should
lead our policy with is, how can we help people become self-
sufficient in agriculture? How can we help women and men
improve their livelihoods by improving their own agriculture
production?
Years ago, we were leaders in this area, in the Green
Revolution and in many other programs through our land grant
universities, in research, and in other ways. But, we have
fallen back very dramatically. We have fallen back on
scholarships--we used to fund hundreds of scholarships and now
we fund only about 42. We used to train over 15,000 students in
agriculture in the developing world, now we train about 1,000
students. We used to have many specialists in our USAID that
would help work on these programs, and now we have about 22.
And we spend about 20 times as much on food aid to sub-Saharan
Africa as we spend on helping farmers be able to help
themselves.
If we are to be leaders in this area, then we can see many
benefits for the United States. We can see national security
benefits, because hunger and poverty have empirically been
political flashpoints. In May 2008, the food crisis caused food
riots in several countries, and helped unseat at least two
governments in this world in the last year.
We see that there are commercial benefits, commercial
benefits to our own agriculture if we are able to support the
economic development and well-being of countries in Africa and
South Asia and elsewhere because, after all, long term, the
markets for our own farmers are, in the developing world, far
beyond the markets that are available in developed countries.
Institutionally, we can improve our own operation of our
own aid programs, and we can coordinate much better with
providing leadership to the U.N. organizations in working with
foundations such as the Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller
Foundation.
This is also a wonderful way to restore American standing
and leadership in the world, because it reintroduces America as
a force for good on a critical global issue.
And finally, of course, we see this as a moral
responsibility for Americans, to help our sisters and brothers
from around the world who are hungry, and, by providing
leadership in agricultural development. A survey done by The
Chicago Council found that 40 percent of Americans believe that
it is important to address the challenge of poverty, and it
should be done through support agricultural productivity in the
developing world.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Ms. Bertini.
Mr. Glickman.
STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL R. GLICKMAN, FORMER SECRETARY OF
AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Glickman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar. It's
an honor to appear before both of you today. And, Senator
Shaheen, who succeeded me at the Institute of Politics and, I
understand, did a much better job than I did, but I'm delighted
that she is here.
The Chairman. Are you planning to run for the Senate, too,
now? [Laughter.]
Mr. Glickman. No. Anyway, thank you all. And I want to echo
the comments of Catherine Bertini.
We prepared this book, which you all have a copy of. This
is a strategic plan, actually, on how to change America's
leadership in the world as it relates to global hunger and
poverty. I think you all should have this. If you don't, we'll
get you all copies of this.\1\ We had a distinguished,
bipartisan group of leaders, from Tom Pickering to Peter
McPherson to Per Pinstrup-Andersen, Rich Williamson, a whole
bunch of people who helped us put this together. The idea was
to put agricultural development at the center of U.S. foreign-
assistance policy, because we believe it's perhaps the most
important way to alleviate hunger and poverty in the world.
Catherine talked about a lot of the statistics, here. But, I do
believe that, by acting decisively and in our own national
interests, our country can play a central role in saving
millions, if not tens of millions, of lives in the poorest
nations of the world, as we did during the Green Revolution.
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\1\ The publication referred to by Mr. Glickman, ``Renewing
American Leadership in the Fight Against Global Hunger and Poverty, The
Chicago Initiative on Global Agricultural Development,'' The Chicago
Council on Global Affairs, 2009, will be maintained in the committee's
permanent records.
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I can't resist bringing a movie analogy in for a moment. In
the movie ``Schindler's List,'' you may recall, at the end,
Schindler said he didn't do enough to help, to which one of his
captives said, ``In the words of the Talmud, if you save one
life, you save the entire world.'' And I think what we're
talking about here is, by saving more than one life, we can
save the entire world many times over, because there is a
prescription to make people self-reliant so that they can
become productive citizens and get themselves out of poverty,
and end malnutrition. And that's the important thesis of this
particular report.
The most critical requirement for a renewed U.S. effort in
the fight against global poverty is leadership, and in
particular, the interest and commitment of the President of the
United States, the White House, the infrastructure of our
Federal Government, and especially of the United States
Congress. Without executive and legislative leadership, these
issues tend to kind of drift. And I think it's one of the
reasons Senator Kerry talked about looking back at the foreign
assistance programs again on a more comprehensive level.
This is a major effort. It will cost, however, modestly--
our indications are, first-year costs of $340 million,
increasing to about a billion dollars annually when the
proposal reaches full funding.
The key recommendations are: Increasing support for
agricultural extension and education in sub-Saharan Africa and
South Asia and increasing support for agricultural research in
sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. As Senator Lugar talked
about, the problems of climate, drought, pest resistance all
will increase in this changing world, and we desperately need
the kind of research that was done during the Green Revolution
that changed the lives of a whole continent. In addition to
that, we have to look at the way the U.S. development
assistance and agriculture development policy is implemented,
including improving interagency coordination for America's
agricultural development assistance efforts. And to coordinate
this, we need somebody in the White House, we believe, that's
kind of in charge of this, overall, to keep pushing, and we
propose an Interagency Council on Global Agriculture, led by a
National Security Council deputy charged with the
responsibility of managing this whole affair. We also believe
that AID needs a significantly strengthened role in our
government, needs to have independent budget authority, and
needs to be tasked with, in fact, taking the lead to getting
the job done.
We talk, in our report, about the congressional capacity to
partner in managing agricultural assistance policy. And I think
it is fairly self-evident. We cannot, on our own, solve the
problems of global poverty, but our actions can serve as a
catalyst for public-private partnerships that will engage the
relevant stakeholders and ensure that action is effective. So,
we draw on resources and expertise of the U.S., of
nongovernmental institutions, universities, private companies,
and we build with partnerships with folks located in sub-
Saharan Africa and South Asia, as well.
This is an opportunity to reintroduce America as a leader
in the world and a force for positive change, and it's
something that people will relish, I believe, all over the
world as they try to rebuild their local systems of government
and their economies. And the recommendations discussed will
have significant and lasting impact on our international
partners, as well.
So, saying that, Mr. Chairman, I'm delighted to have been a
part of this effort. I'm especially delighted to have worked
with Catherine as she led the effort to feed millions of people
over the years. And with the research arms of our government,
particularly at USDA and other places, as well, we have the
capability to really have a remarkable and lasting impact on
the lives of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The joint prepared statement of Ms. Bertini and Mr.
Glickman follows:]
Joint Prepared Statement of Cochairs of The Chicago Council on Global
Affairs' Global Agricultural Development Project--Dan Glickman, Former
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, DC, and Catherine Bertini,
Former Executive Director, U.N. World Food Programme, Syracuse, NY
Chairman Kerry, Senator Lugar, and members of the committee, thank
you for giving us the opportunity to appear before you to discuss our
recent work to identify opportunities for the U.S. to reassert its
leadership in the fight against global hunger and poverty.
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs convened the Global
Agricultural Development Leaders Group in fall 2008 to examine the
risks posed by rural poverty and food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa
and South Asia, the role of women in farm families in bring about
change, and the opportunities for the United States to better address
the challenges of global hunger and poverty through agricultural
development. This Leaders Group, which we cochaired, brought together
individuals with expertise in food and agriculture, foreign policy,
development of U.S. public policy and international organizations. The
work of this group was supported by a committee of experts with strong
knowledge of agricultural research, infrastructure and agricultural
development, trade, regional affairs in sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia, and international economics. The conclusions and recommendations
of the Global Agricultural Development Leaders Group are put forth in
the recent report, ``Renewing American Leadership in the Fight Against
Global Hunger and Poverty.''
Our study concludes that the Obama administration and 111th
Congress have a unique opportunity to restore America's global
leadership in the fight against global hunger and poverty. Over 700
million people live in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia, and struggle to provide food and income for their families
through farming. The United States has the agricultural expertise,
institutions, and experience to provide critically needed support to
increase the productivity and incomes of smallholder farmers in these
regions. What is required is the vision and commitment of American
governmental and private sector leaders, working alongside their
African and South Asian counterparts, in the years to come.
The 2008 global food crisis renewed attention to the persistent
problems of hunger and poverty in the developing world and aroused
concern about global food security over the long term. Sub-Saharan
Africa and South Asia are home to the largest numbers of poor, hungry,
people in the world, most of whom are female, smallholder farmers.
Rural poverty is projected to worsen in the years ahead due to
continued population growth, growing pressures on limited land and
water supplies, and climate change. In Africa, food production has
fallen behind population growth for most of the past two decades, and
the number of undernourished people is expected to increase another 30
percent over the next 10 years to reach 645 million. Under a
``business-as-usual'' scenario, with climate change taken into account,
the number of undernourished people in sub-Saharan Africa could triple
between 1990 and 2080.
The source of these problems is not solely fluctuating food prices
on the world market, but low productivity on the farm. The production
growth needed will have to come from improved farm policies,
technologies, and techniques, including those that address the effects
of climate change.
Rural hunger and poverty decline dramatically when education,
investment, and new technologies give farmers better ways to be
productive. This happened in Europe and North America in the middle
decades of the 20th century, then in Japan, and then on the irrigated
lands of East and South Asia during the Green Revolution in the final
decades of the 20th century. The problem for sub-Saharan Africa and
poorest areas of South Asia is that these original Green Revolution
improvements had only limited reach.
The early achievements of the Green Revolution were nonetheless
dramatic enough to create a false impression that the world's food and
farming problems had mostly been solved. As a consequence, the
international donors who had provided strong support for agricultural
innovation and investment in the 1960s and 1970s began pulling money
and support away. America's official development assistance to
agriculture in Africa declined approximately 85 percent from the mid-
1980s to 2006. In FY08, the United States spent 20 times as much on
food aid in Africa as it spent to help African farmers grow their own
food.
America must reassert its leadership in helping stimulate higher
agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia--through
agricultural education and extension, local agricultural research, and
rural infrastructure--so the rural poor and hungry can feed themselves
and help support growing population under increasingly challenging
climate conditions. Without American leadership, little will happen.
While the United States can and must take the lead, its leadership
must base its actions on new approaches suited to new realities on
engaging partners across the spectrum of government and institutions
that can and should be playing a much stronger role. A strong American
initiative will encourage America's partners to bring their own
resources to the table. Governments in sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia will also be asked to fulfill their pledges to restore the
priority of rural poverty reduction. Finally, the United States must
listen and respond to the needs of women in these poor rural areas, who
make up the vast majority of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia.
A number of statistics demonstrate what the result of investments
in agricultural development can be. Economists project with some
confidence that every 1-percent increase in per capita agricultural
output tends to lead to a 1.6-percent increase in the incomes of the
poorest 20 percent of the population. According to a recent study by
the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, DC, if
total investments in agricultural research and development in sub-
Saharan Africa were increased to $2.9 billion annually by the year
2013, the number of poor people living on less than $1 per day in the
region would decline by an additional 144 million by 2020. If annual
agricultural research and investments in South Asia were increased by
$3.1 billion by 2013, a total of 125 million more citizens in this
region would escape poverty by 2020, and the poverty ratio in the
region would decrease from 35 percent to 26 percent.
The United States has a vital interest in playing a leadership role
in the fight against global hunger and poverty. America's diplomatic,
economic, cultural, and security interests will be increasingly
compromised if our government does not immediately begin to change its
policy posture toward the rural agricultural crisis currently building
in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Through renewed leadership on
these issues, America can strengthen its moral standing, renew ties and
relationships in regions of heightened strategic concern, increase its
political influence and improve its competitive position, hedge against
the serious future danger of failed states, open the door to increased
trade and cultural exchange, and strengthen American institutions.
First, strong American involvement in the fight against global
poverty is consistent with our Nation's highest values and aspirations.
Americans are deeply uncomfortable with hunger, whether they see it
face to face in their own neighborhoods or broadcast from Asia and
Africa on a television screen. A public opinion survey commissioned by
the Chicago Council found that 42 percent of the America people believe
that it is not just ``important'' but ``very important'' that the
United States make combating world hunger a priority in the conduct of
foreign policy.
Diplomatically, both Africa and South Asia are already regions of
heightened concern for the United States. Finding a constructive new
way to engage governments in these two regions can help restore
America's policy influence. An initiative that mobilizes the talent and
influence of America's best institutions--especially its universities--
to address rural poverty and hunger in these regions is a wise and
efficient deployment of America's ``soft power.''
In Africa, more than 800 state-owned Chinese enterprises are
currently active, many working in infrastructure projects greatly
appreciated by the Africans, even though they are linked heavily to
petroleum and mineral extraction. The United States has recently
invested a great deal in Africa's health needs and in the provision of
humanitarian relief. But the United States would have far more
political influence in Africa if it also provided a stronger support
for the fundamental investments needed to stimulate economic growth.
In South Asia, an agricultural development initiative would help
the United States strengthen its relations with the governments of this
region beyond geostrategic or security issues. In Pakistan, for
example, the United States urgently needs to find a way to stabilize
and gain influence in a nation beset by economic distress, social
fragmentation, political instability, and now insurgency. Out of the
$1.9 billion in overt U.S. aid to Pakistan in fiscal year 2008, only
$30 million was development assistance. A new initiative to support
agricultural research and education in Pakistan would be one way to
implement the valuable 2008 Biden-Lugar vision for increasing
nonmilitary aid to Pakistan. Agriculture accounts for 25 percent of the
gross domestic product in Pakistan and employs more than half of the
total population. Currently, only half of Pakistan's population enjoys
adequate nutrition.
National leaders in Africa and South Asia are fully aware of the
peril they now face from growing rural hunger and poverty, and they
have repeatedly stated they would welcome a bold new American
initiative in support of increased local food production. Since the
2003 meeting of African Union governments, where the heads of nations
pledged to increase investments in agricultural productivity, the New
Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) established the
Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) to provide
an operation framework to coordinate donor investments in agricultural
development. If the United States were to become a leader in support of
these efforts, stronger political ties would be established with dozens
of African states.
An initiative to address rural hunger and poverty will also bring
long-term economic and cultural benefits to the United States in a time
when our Nation is steadily developing deeper ties with Africa and
South Asia. Americans and Africans are becoming far more closely
connected every year in areas such as trade, investment, health, and
the arts. In 2007, U.S. total exports to sub-Saharan Africa totaled
$14.4 billion, more than double the amount in 2001.
Faster economic growth in Africa and South Asia will create new
trade and investment opportunities for American business. Already in
South Asia, where GDP growth averaged above 8 percent between 2005 and
2008, American investors and exporters are making important gains. A
renewed American focus on alleviating poverty reduction in rural areas
will pay significant economic dividends in the long run.
National security interests are also impacted. Hunger and poverty
are humanitarian flash points. We saw during the 2007-08 interlude of
extremely high world food prices that human distress in this area can
lead to violent political confrontation. When international rice and
wheat prices spiked in April 2008, violent protests broke out in a
dozen countries, resulting in nearly 200 deaths and helping unseat
governments in Haiti and Mauritania. In Cameroon in February 2008,
riots left 24 dead. In India, at least six died in a mob attack on West
Bengali rice sellers in rationing protests. In Bangladesh in April
2008, 20,000 textile workers rioted over wages and food prices.
Supporting rural development and poverty alleviation provide a
valuable hedge against future political confrontations and the serious
future danger of more failed states--more Somalias, Zimbabwes, Sudans,
and Afghanistans.
Finally, a renewed U.S. effort to support global poverty
alleviation provide opportunities and benefits to key institutions in
the United States including American NGOs working in agriculture and
development, land-grant universities, and America's private
philanthropic foundation. University leaders in the U.S. will
especially welcome revitalized support for educational exchanges and
research ties to sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The U.S. land-grant
university system is world renowned and deepening these universities'
partnerships with counterparts in the developing world will improve
American understanding of contemporary social realities in both South
Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Although there are urgent priorities confronting the new U.S.
administration and Congress, the time is still ripe for a new
initiative to combat global hunger and poverty. Renewed American
engagement would signal a dramatic shift in America's relations with
the developing world. It would be a first, yet transformative step,
with the promise of lasting impact. Moreover, global food shortages
triggered by much higher prices have focused greater political
attention on food and hunger issues. This creates a unique opportunity
for action. Finally, the rural poverty and hunger crisis will only grow
larger with every year of inaction. Postponing action on this
Initiative beyond 2009 could mean, in the reality of American politics,
a delay until 2013 or even 2017, allowing an already desperate
situation to deteriorate even more.
The Global Agricultural Development Leaders Group developed five
recommendations for how the United States Government can better address
the challenge of global hunger and poverty, and achieve the benefits
discussed. These recommendations, and supporting action points, make up
the Chicago Initiative on Global Agricultural Development. The
suggested actions focus on sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the two
regions where hunger and poverty are the furthest from being solved and
where they will continue to worsen in the years and decades ahead under
a ``business-as-usual'' scenario. They are targeted at smallholder
agriculture, as the majority of the rural poor rely on agriculture for
their livelihoods, and the history of economic development tells us
that broad-based agricultural change is an essential and early step
that must be taken across societies. They also acknowledge that women
play a particularly critical role in the agricultural sector, and must
be central to any new U.S. approach. The actions suggested recognize
that strong U.S. leadership is needed, but it should listen to the
needs and aspiration of those in Africa and South Asia, and respect and
nurture local initiatives and leadership. Finally, these
recommendations represent only an initial, small, but potentially
transformative step toward reducing hunger and poverty in sub-Saharan
Africa and South Asia.
Recommendation 1--Increase support for agricultural education and
extension at all levels in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
Education and training are essential to successful agricultural
development. In the United States, farming did not become highly
productive until average rates of public high school completion in
rural America began approaching the urban level. These better educated
American farmers prospered by leading the world in the uptake of
improved farming technologies, many of which were developed by
agricultural researchers at America's publicly funded land-grant
universities. Between 1959 and 2000 the percentage of farm-dwelling
Americans living below the official poverty line dropped from more than
50 percent to 10 percent, a lower poverty rate than nonfarming
Americans. Public investments in agricultural research, education, and
extension have also increased farm productivity and reduced rural
poverty in other countries and regions. Yet in the impoverished
communities of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, this important tool
has hardly been put to use.
Building on its own institutional experience in this area, the
United States should now play a central role in helping sub-Saharan
Africa and South Asia improve agricultural education and extension to
benefit the rural poor. First, USAID can increase its support for
students, teachers, researchers, and policymakers in sub-Saharan Africa
and South Asia seeking to study agriculture at U.S. universities. In
the past, the U.S. has been generous in its support for international
agricultural students, with a successful result. In support of the
original Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, roughly 800 Indian
agricultural scientists were supported in the United States for
advanced training in agriculture and natural resource protection.
However, U.S. support for such programs has waned in recent years. In
1990, USAID was funding 310 agricultural-focused students annually from
developing countries; today only 82 are supported. USAID-sponsored
scholarships to Africans for overseas post-graduate training in
agriculture fell from 250 in 1985 to just 42 by 2008. We can trace much
of the strong performance of Indian, Brazilian, and East Asian
agriculture directly to the trained cadres of national agricultural
educators and scientists who spent time at universities in the United
States; increasing the number of students trained at U.S. universities
is critical to supporting overall development of Africa and South
Asia's agricultural sectors.
The United States must also increase the number and extent of
American agricultural university partnerships with universities in sub-
Saharan Africa and South Asia, so these regions can take over
agricultural leadership training in the long run. In Africa currently,
enrollment rates for higher education are by far the lowest in the
world. The gross enrollment ration in the region for 18- to 23-year-
olds stands at only 5 percent, compared to the 19 percent for East
Asia. Institutions are typically short of trained faculty, with often
only 30 to 70 percent of required faculty postings unfilled. The
enrollment in South Asia is only slightly better at 10 percent.
Economists have recently calculated that higher education is a good
investment. A 1-year increase in tertiary education stock can boost per
capita income by a potential 3 percent after 5 years, and eventually by
12 percent. To better support universities in sub-Saharan Africa and
South Asia, the United States should provide funding to create and
deepen partnerships between U.S. land-grant universities and
counterparts in developing countries.
In addition to supporting universities and their students, the U.S.
should provide direct support for agricultural education, research and
extension for young women and men through rural organizations,
universities, and training facilities. Small-holder farmers yearn for
education and training, both inside and outside a university setting,
but many institutions have difficulty providing this training due to
minimal operating resources. USAID should do more to help provide such
resources and support training institutions, farmer-to-farmer volunteer
programs, and training tools similar to 4-H, and Future Farmers of
America.
The U.S. Government can also support education and training through
building a special Peace Corps cadre of agriculture training and
extension volunteers to work with African and South Asian institutions
to provide on-the-ground, practical training, especially with and for
women farmers; and supporting primary education for rural girls and
boys through school feeding programs based on local or regional food
purchase.
Recommendation 2--Increase support for agricultural research in sub-
Saharan Africa and South Asia
Basic and adaptive agricultural research must be at the foundation
of any serious effort to increase agricultural productivity. Studies
that calculate annual rates of return on alternative investments for
increasing growth and reducing poverty in poor countries find that
investments in agricultural research have either the highest or second
highest rates of return. The International Food Policy Research
Institute estimates that if public investments in agricultural research
are doubled during the next 5 years, and those levels are then
sustained, and if the increased investments are allocated to meet needs
in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the resulting improvements in
agricultural output would lift 282 million people out of poverty by
2020.
In spite of its proven success, U.S. investments in agricultural
research have dramatically declined in recent years. U.S. funding of
national agricultural research institutions has declined by 75 percent
since the 1980s. Its support for the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research, the leading network of
international research centers responsible for developing innovations
in agricultural science useful to poor farmers in the developing world,
has been cut by 47 percent. And its funding for collaborative research
projects between American and developing country scientists dropped 55
percent.
New research for many of Africa and South Asia's local crops such
as millet, cassava, and cowpea, will be needed to enhance productivity
depending on the region's climate and acroecology. The need for
research will only increase as the effects of climate change begin to
impact these regions.
The Chicago Initiative on Global Agricultural Development suggests
the United States better support agricultural research through
increasing funding for National Agricultural Research Systems in sub-
Saharan Africa and South Asia, the Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research, and collaborative research between scientists in
the U.S. and developing countries.
Recommendation 3--Increase support for rural and agricultural
infrastructure, especially in sub-Saharan Africa
Improved infrastructure must be an essential component of any
serious effort to increase the productivity and income of poor farmers.
The rural poor in Africa and South Asia need improved access to low-
cost irrigation, transportation, electrical power, storage, and
marketing systems for their crops. Rural infrastructure in Africa is
seriously underdeveloped. Roughly 70 percent of all rural dwellers live
more than a 30-minute walk from the nearest all-weather road. Only 10
percent of the land is irrigated. Without roads, safe water, electrical
power, and communications, poor farmers will be held back because they
lack affordable access to innovative new technologies, essential
inputs, and market for their output. Unfortunately, profit-making
private companies have little incentive to invest in infrastructure.
However, public investments in rural infrastructure are a proven
key to poverty reduction. In India, according to calculations done by
the International Food Policy Research Institute, investments in rural
roads were even more powerful than investments in agricultural research
and development for the purpose of lifting people out of poverty.
Similar impacts have been measured in Uganda and Ethiopia. The World
Health Organization has calculated that if all Africans were simply
provided with improved water and sanitation services, along with
household water treatment at point of use, the annual health,
financial, and productivity benefits would exceed the annual costs by a
ration of about 14 to 1.
Africa's total rural infrastructure needs are substantial, far more
than the United States can or should attempt to finance on its own.
Instead, the U.S. should also use its considerable funding commitments
in the area of infrastructure, recently made through the Millennium
Challenge Corporation, to leverage larger and better focused rural
infrastructure efforts by others.
First, the U.S. should encourage a revival of World Bank lending
for agricultural infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia,
including lending for transport corridors, rural energy, clean water,
irrigation, and farm-to-market roads. In recent years the World Bank
has taken a revived interest in infrastructure, including in Africa. It
committed $2 billion to such projects alone in FY08. Working in
consultation with African institutions, and partner donors from the
European Union and Japan, the United States should now insist upon a
sustained increase in World Bank lending for rural and agricultural
infrastructure. The effective delivery of this message will require
close and sustained cooperation between the administrator of USAID
(including MCC) and the Treasury Department, traditionally the agency
responsible for representing U.S. interests with the World Bank.
Bipartisan congressional support for this priority will also be
essential since World Bank leadership is sensitive to congressional
approval.
The U.S. should also accelerate the disbursal of the Millennium
Challenge Corporation funds already obligated for rural roads and other
agricultural infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia. As of 2008, the MCC had awarded 18 grants, 11 of which are toward
African countries. Although the total dollar commitment of these grants
is significant--$4.5 billion--and the grants' heavy focus on
infrastructure correct, the slow pace of progress on the implementation
of these commitments has hindered their impact. For example, the MCC
signed its compact with Benin in February 2006, but nearly 3 years
later only 8 percent of the funds have been disbursed. Moreover, the
MCC compact with Ghana was signed in August 2006, and more than 2 years
later only 6 percent of the funds have been disbursed. Congress must
assist in finding a means to shorten the timeframe between country
selection, compact signing, and fund disbursement.
Recommendation 4--Improve the national and international institutions
that deliver agricultural development assistance
Successful assistance policies cannot emerge from inadequate
institutions or from institutions that do not coordinate with each
other and lack strong political leadership. A strong institutional
framework is required to turn good ideas into operational policies and
ensure that any added budget resources appropriated by Congress will be
put to proper and effective use.
The Chicago Initiative recommends several institutional
improvements. First, clear lines of authority and command must be
established inside the executive branch, emanating first from the White
House, then through a single lead agency for international rural and
agricultural development and hunger reduction. We believe a revitalized
and strengthened USAID should be that lead agency. Its administrator
should chair both the MCC and PEPFAR, and the agency should have an
independent relationship with the Office of Management and Budget.
Second, in order to play this enlarged role in the area of agricultural
development, USAID must be given enhanced professional staff resources
in addition to an increased budget. The number of agricultural
specialists on USAIDs staff has dropped from 181 in 1990 to just 22 in
2008. We recommend increasing the number of agricultural specialists on
USAIDs staff to at least 135; this could include allocating 15 percent
of the 2,000 new personnel envisioned in Senator Durbin's 2008
legislation be hired in the agricultural sector.
Third, an adequate interagency coordination mechanism must exist to
enhance the opportunities for agricultural development and food
security, and avoid duplication or conflict with other agencies. We
suggest creating a new Interagency Council on Global Agriculture within
the Executive Office of the President to provide active leadership and
maintain consistent and effective priorities and actions among the many
U.S. Government agencies engaged in this area. Additionally, the
position of White House National Security Council deputy for global
agriculture should be created, to assure active interagency
coordination on agricultural development policy. The new Interagency
Council should be cochaired by this NSC Deputy, and the Administrator
of USAID.
Fourth, institutions must be developed to ensure and maintain a
strong congressional focus on agricultural development assistance
policy. To accomplish this, we recommend all relevant committees in
both the House of Representative and Senate establish clear staff
liaison responsibilities in the area of agricultural and rural
development.
Finally, America must exert stronger leadership in multilateral
institutions working on food and agriculture to improve their
performance. This means paying strict attention to the setting of
strategy and policies, decisions that affect technical capacity,
management oversight, and program evaluation.
Recommendation 5--Improve U.S. policies currently seen as harmful to
agricultural development abroad
A new U.S. approach to reduce global hunger and poverty will not be
seen as credible without addressing some of our country's own policies
in the area of food and agriculture. Making some of these changes will
provide an international signal that the United States is serious about
reducing global food insecurity, and will help build support for
reducing poverty abroad.
The U.S. should improve the way it delivers food aid. America is
the world's largest donor of food aid to hungry people, a matter of
justifiable national pride. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been
saved through this assistance, and hundreds of millions of lives
improved. However, our food aid programs do not go far enough in
dealing with long-term, systemic problems, and America does not get
enough payoff from its very large food aid budget because of several
longstanding practices in the way it is delivered. To improve this
system, America should increase funding for local purchase of food aid
and scale down the practice of monetizing American food aid into
commercial markets in recipient countries. These actions would grow and
better support local markets and farmers in the developing world.
The United States should also repeal current restrictions on
agricultural development assistance that might lead to more
agricultural production for export in poor countries in possible
competition with U.S. exports. Most notably is a piece of legislation
passed in 1986, most commonly known as the Bumpers amendment, that
prevents USAID from supporting agricultural development or research in
foreign countries of crops that are produced in the United States. The
law was passed at a time when U.S. agricultural exports and crop prices
were in deep collapse--it is now time to repeal this outdated measure.
Moreover, the U.S. should review it's objection to any use of
targeted subsidies (such as vouchers) to reduce the cost to poor
farmers of key inputs such as improved seeds and fertilizers. We are
not saying that such policies should be implemented, but that the
provision of targeted vouchers to support technology use by small
farmers should be restored as one possible option in the design of
USAID agricultural programs in Africa and South Asia, particularly in
circumstances where rural credit markets and transport infrastructure
remain inadequate.
Fourth, the U.S. should revive international negotiations aimed at
reducing trade-distorting policies, including trade-distorting
agricultural subsidies. And finally, the U.S. should adopt biofuels
policies that place greater emphasis on market forces and on the use of
nonfood feedstocks. Research suggests that the recent promotion of corn
use for ethanol production were a major factor in the international
food price spikes in 2008. The Energy Independence and Security Act of
2007's mandate that 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel be used in the
United States by 2022, with up to 15 billion gallons of that to come
from corn, is insensitive to market forces and may threaten global food
supply. Consideration should now be given to either waiving or reducing
these mandates, and increasing the use of nonfood feedstocks in the
production of biofuels.
The estimated total cost to the U.S. budget of the recommend
actions in the Chicago Initiative is $340 million in the first year,
increasing to $1.03 billion by year five and continuing at that level
through year ten. Projected first-year costs are only 1.5 percent of
the current annual U.S. official development assistance budget of $21.8
billion. By year five, costs would still only be a 4.75-percent of
current U.S. official development assistance.
These five recommendations are an opportunity for the United States
to reestablish its leadership in the fight against global hunger--
providing a small but critical step toward lifting millions out of
hunger and putting them on the path to self-reliance. While many of
these actions are not entirely new, they have been proven effective in
the past--through the remarkable earlier achievements of the Green
Revolution--when adequately funded. What is new is the effort to
improve, modify, refresh, and append these measures for a new age and a
new challenge. When taken together, these recommendations will align
America with the forces of positive change, to meet the most basic of
human needs and lofty of human aspirations.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr.
Glickman.
Reverend Beckmann.
STATEMENT OF DAVID BECKMANN, PRESIDENT,
BREAD FOR THE WORLD, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Beckmann. Mr. Chairman, Senator Lugar, members of the
committee, thank you for this hearing and for inviting me.
I want to start out by telling you about a trip I took to
Mozambique and Malawi in December. In Mozambique, we got to go
to a really remote area; we were about 100 miles from the
nearest road, and our first stop was this little settlement of
40 households, called Mtimbe, on the lakeshore. It's just 40
mud houses, each one with its little cassava field. The
importance of agriculture to the poorest people in the world
was just obvious in this little place, because if that cassava
field flourishes, the family does fine; if that cassava field
doesn't do well, they go hungry for a long time.
I was heartened that, even in Mtimbe, I could see the
impact of U.S. foreign assistance. So, almost all the kids are
in school in Mtimbe; that's from debt relief. And people in
Mtimbe are living with HIV and AIDS, so they're taking care of
their kids, they're farming, because they have antiretrovirals.
Also in these two countries, I could see that our foreign
assistance could be more effective. In both countries, we're
not doing enough in agriculture. Our aid programs are heavily
earmarked, so we're not very responsive to local needs, more
generally. And in Mozambique, AID, the MCA, and PEPFAR are all
operating independently, and it was pretty clear to me that
staff don't necessarily know what each other's doing.
I'm really thrilled that President Obama and Secretary
Clinton are putting the emphasis on global poverty--and
specifically, hunger--that they are, and I'm really grateful to
Senator Lugar and Senator Casey for introducing the Global Food
Security Act. It would revivify U.S. support for agriculture,
it would make our food aid more efficient and more effective,
and it's right to call for a global food security strategy.
There are two recent reports that are suggestive of what
could be an official food security strategy. The Chicago
Council report, which I heartily endorse. There's also a report
called the ``Roadmap to U.S. Leadership in Ending Hunger,''
which was put together by 30 NGOs, including many of the groups
that administer U.S. food aid. I think the two most important
conclusions are that U.S. funding for agriculture ought to grow
to be equivalent to our funding for food aid, and that, over
time, half of our food aid ought to be locally procured rather
than shipped from this country.
Bread for the World's main campaign this year is a push for
broad reform of foreign assistance. What we'd like is that you
pull several agencies together into one strong, accountable
agency, focus it on development and poverty reduction, and make
it more responsive to local needs. One result of that is that
we'd be doing more funding for agriculture, and another result
is that there would be better coordination across the
government on hunger and other issues, on an ongoing basis.
I really was--I was delighted, this morning, Mr. Chairman,
that you talked about what you're doing to initiate work on
foreign aid reform, and you mentioned the possibility of
authorizing legislation. I do think it's important that you
make it clear to the administration and the House that this
committee is ready to work with them on broad reform of foreign
assistance.
There's a really broad array of organizations who are
working together to encourage broad reform of foreign
assistance now. It includes a number of organizations that have
national constituencies, so--Bread for the World, Oxfam, the
ONE campaign, InterAction. But, right now if somebody outside
the Beltway wants to weigh in on this issue, they don't really
have a very effective way to get their Senator to show support
for the committee's work on foreign assistance reform. So,
maybe the authorizing legislation that you're talking about--
that could be something that any Senator could cosponsor so
that--so that people around the country can build support for
this work.
World hunger--we've made progress over the last several
decades, against poverty, hunger, disease--remarkable progress.
But, we've suffered a tremendous setback here over the last
couple of years because of high grain prices and now the
recession. We need to provide additional assistance, as the
chairman has said, and at a time like this, we also need to
make sure that our foreign aid is just as effective as
possible, and that more of the aid is going to people who
really need help.
So, I hope you'll pass the Global Food Security Act and
that you will also move forward on broad reform of foreign
assistance.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Beckmann follows:]
Prepared Statement of David Beckmann, President,
Bread for the World, Washington, DC
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for this
opportunity. I am David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, a
collective Christian voice that urges our Nation's decisionmakers to
end hunger at home and abroad.
MOZAMBIQUE AND MALAWI
I was in Mozambique and Malawi in December. I got to visit a remote
area of Mozambique, a hundred miles from the nearest road. My first
stop was a settlement of about 40 households called Mtimbe. There were
no shops or government buildings, just mud homes, each with its cassava
field.
The tremendous importance of agriculture to the world's poorest
people was obvious in Mtimbe. If a family's cassava field flourishes,
they are fine. It if fails, they go hungry for a long time.
The farmers I visited in Malawi benefit from extension services,
improved varieties, and rural roads. The farmers across the lake in
Mozambique have none of that, and they are much poorer.
I was heartened to see U.S. assistance at work even in far-off
Mtimbe. The great majority of the kids are in school, partly because of
debt relief. I met people who had been at death's door but are now
farming and taking care of their children--because of AIDS medication
that our Government funds.
But I also noted that the United States does less than we should to
support agriculture in Malawi and Mozambique. More generally, we aren't
very responsive to local needs and priorities, because our aid programs
are heavily earmarked here in Washington. In Mozambique USAID, PEPFAR,
and the MCA is each doing its own thing.
THE GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY ACT
I am grateful to Senator Lugar and Senator Casey for the Global
Food Security Act. It would reinvigorate U.S. assistance to agriculture
and make our emergency food assistance more efficient and effective. It
calls for an integrated global food security strategy.
The Chicago Council report and another recent report, the ``Roadmap
to U.S. Leadership to Ending Hunger,'' both suggest what might be
included in an official global food security strategy. Other panelists
will discuss the Chicago initiative, so I'll focus on the roadmap. It
is endorsed by more than 30 NGOs, including many of the organizations
that administer food aid. It says that we should be investing as much
in agricultural development as in food aid; that over time half our
food aid should be purchased locally; and that nutrition programs
should be focused on the most vulnerable groups (small children, their
mothers, and people with HIV and AIDS). It also flags the impact of our
trade policies on global food security.
FOREIGN AID REFORM
Bread for the World's main campaign this year is calling for broad
reform of foreign assistance. We hope Congress will pull several aid
agencies together into one accountable agency, focus it clearly on
development and poverty reduction, and allow it to be responsive to
local needs and priorities.
That would lead to substantially more funding for agricultural
development and better ongoing coordination across the government on
hunger and other development issues.
The committee is well aware of the need for foreign assistance
reform. You have taken steps toward reform in the past. Mr. Chairman, I
recommend that you make it clear that the committee is willing to work
for foreign assistance reform if key policymakers in the administration
and House are willing to work with you. The Obama administration,
especially Secretary Clinton, is actively considering what is needed to
make our aid programs better coordinated and more effective. Your
counterparts in the House under the leadership of Chairman Berman have
made foreign assistance reform a priority for this year.
A remarkably diverse array of organizations and experts are calling
for foreign assistance reform. Many of them are connected with the
Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network, which I cochair with Steve
Radelet. Our coalition includes many groups with nationwide reach. But
right now, people outside the beltway don't have a very effective way
to urge their senators to show their support for the committee's work
for foreign assistance reform. We need a bill or resolution they can
ask their Senators to cosponsor.
Because of high grain prices and the recession, almost a billion of
the world's people are now hungry. Some of the poorest people in the
world have been hardest hit by the turmoil in the global economy. We
should provide additional assistance. But given our own economic
problems, we need to make our foreign assistance just as effective as
possible and focus more of the aid on reducing hunger and poverty.
I hope you will pass the Global Food Security Act and move forward
on broad reform of foreign assistance.
The Chairman. Thank you, Reverend.
Mr. Paarlberg.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT PAARLBERG, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE,
WELLESLEY COLLEGE, WELLESLEY, MA
Mr. Paarlberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Senator Lugar, and thank you, to the other members of the
committee. As someone who currently lives in Massachusetts and
grew up in Indiana, I feel like I'm in good hands here on this
committee. [Laughter.]
The issue before the committee is America's leadership in
alleviating global hunger. And in my written testimony, I
explain that America's performance here has been inconsistent.
In responding to short-term crises, we generally do very well.
For example, in response to the 2008 international food price
spike, the United States committed an additional $1.4 billion
worth of food aid. And, unlike other countries, the United
States never placed any restrictions on its own food exports,
so the United States played a generous and a stabilizing role
in response to that crisis. I'd grade it at least a B-plus.
But, the larger and the longer term challenge is to address
persistent malnutrition that afflicts nearly 1 billion people
in the developing world. These people are weakened by hunger,
even when international prices are low. And here, the United
States has not done well at all. The United States response in
this area earns something closer to an F in recent years.
It's sometimes not well understood that the hungriest
people in the world actually work as farmers. More than 200
million in Africa, roughly 400 million in South Asia. And these
farmers are poor--and hence, hungry--because they don't have
access to any of the things that farmers elsewhere have used to
become more productive and to escape poverty.
Consider farmers in Africa. They have little formal
education, most are women, and two out of three cannot read or
write in any language. They don't have access to modern seeds
or to fertilizers, so their crop yields per hectare are only
one-fifth as high as in the United States. Only 4 percent have
access to irrigation, so if the rains fail, their crops fail.
They don't have access to any electricity or any powered
machinery of any kind, or any veterinary medicine for their
weak and sick and stunted animals. And finally, 70 percent of
these farmers live more than a 30-minute walk from the nearest
paved road, so they're effectively cut off from commercial
markets.
And because of these deficits, agricultural production in
Africa has lagged behind population growth for most of the last
three decades. As Senator Lugar mentioned, per-capita
production of maize has actually dropped by 14 percent since
1980. Average income of these farmers is less than $1 a day,
and one-third are chronically malnourished.
But, to make things worse, over the last 25 years the U.S.
Government has essentially walked away from this problem. Since
the 1980s, the United States Government has cut its official
development assistance to agriculture in Africa by roughly 85
percent. The staff at USAID that handle agriculture has been
cut by nearly 90 percent. So, as things have been getting
steadily worse in Africa, the United States Government has,
curiously, been doing steadily less.
These cuts in U.S. effort resulted from an unfortunate
combination of three factors:
First, too much complacent optimism after the success of
the original Green Revolution on the irrigated lands of Asia.
Second, too much faith that private-sector investments
could solve the problem under the Washington consensus doctrine
that took over the World Bank and USAID in the 1980s. This
doctrine failed badly in rural Africa, because there the
fundamental public goods that are needed to support markets and
attract investments (things like rural roads, agricultural
research, schools, rural power); these things had not yet been
provided by government, so the private sector stayed away.
And third--third factor that has cut U.S. support for
agriculture development is, frankly, too much hostility to the
use of fertilizer and improved seeds by some activist groups
who claim to work on behalf of social justice and environmental
protection. Surprising number of activist groups today think it
would be a mistake to introduce the use of nitrogen fertilizers
or improved seeds into agriculture in Africa. They've come to
believe it would be better for Africans to reduce their
nitrogen fertilizer use to zero and to form--and to farm
organically. Now, the fact is, most small farmers in Africa
today are already de facto organic; they don't use any nitrogen
fertilizers, they don't use any synthetic pesticides, they
don't use any genetically modified seeds. And this has not made
them productive and prosperous.
So, it's time to get beyond these rigid ideologies and find
a more pragmatic way forward. And, fortunately, agricultural
specialists have reached a consensus on what's needed in
regions such as Africa, the consensus that's contained both in
the 2009 Global Food Security Act and in the report from the
Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
I think the danger isn't that Congress will debate this
strategy and then reject it as too costly, because it isn't too
costly relative to the anticipated humanitarian, economic, and
diplomatic gains. The danger, instead, is that a serious debate
will never take place amid the many distractions of the day,
and action will simply be deferred. And this would be a costly
error, because if action is deferred under a business-as-usual
scenario, the numbers of chronically malnourished people in
Africa, in particular, will increase by another 30 percent over
the next 10 years, making the problem that much more difficult
to resolve if and when we eventually decide to confront it.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Paarlberg follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert Paarlberg, Professor of
Political Science, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
Providing international leadership to alleviate global hunger
requires our Government to have strong policies in two separate areas:
Responding to short-term food emergencies, such as the
international food price spike we saw in 2008, which
temporarily put up to 100 million more people at risk.
Attacking the persistent poverty that keeps more than 850
million people hungry even when international food prices are
low.
In the first of these areas, the United States Government has done
a good job, at least a B+. But in the second area the U.S. has done a
poor job over the past 25 years, something close to an F. In 2009
America has a chance to correct this second failing grade by directing
more development assistance support to help small farmers in sub-
Saharan Africa and South Asia. Until the productivity of these small
farmers goes up, poverty and hunger will not go down.
America's Laudable Response to the 2008 World Food Crisis
When the price of food on the world market suddenly surged upward
during the first 6 months of 2008, it was clear that some developing
countries heavily dependent on imported food needed help. In April 2008
the World Bank produced an estimate that an additional 100 million
people in the developing world were being pushed into effective poverty
because of the much higher food import prices.\1\ The New York Times
called these high prices a ``World Food Crisis.'' The Economist called
it a ``Silent Tsunami.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Maros Ivanic and Will Martin, ``Implications of Higher Global
Food Prices on Poverty in Low-Income Countries,'' Policy Research
Working Paper 4594, World Bank, April 2008. In my view this estimate
was too high. The Bank's calculation was based on what it called a
``guesstimate'' that 66 percent of all price changes on the world
market would be transmitted into the domestic markets of developing
countries. The events of 2008 suggest there was far less price
transmission than this. Much of the sharp rise in international prices
resulted from an intentional blockage of price transmissions into
domestic markets. It was an artificial stabilization of so many
domestic market prices that worsened the destabilization of
international markets.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was a serious crisis for poor countries heavily dependent on
food imports, particularly in West Africa and the Caribbean, but not
all developing countries fell into that category. Many governments in
the developing world have long made it a point not to depend on imports
of basic grains (in the name of national food ``self-sufficiency'').
For example in South Asia only about 6 percent of total grain
consumption is imported, and in India specifically only 1 percent of
rice consumption is imported. So when the price of rice for export
tripled in 2008 it was a shock in Cameroon and Haiti, but it had little
effect on most poor people in India.
International food prices spiked as high as they did precisely
because so many developing country governments decided not to let
higher international prices cross into their own domestic economy. When
export prices starting increasing in 2007, one country after another
insulated its domestic market from the increase by placing new
restrictions on food exports. China imposed export taxes on grains and
grain products. Argentina raised export taxes on wheat, corn and
soybeans. Russia raised export taxes on wheat. Malaysia and Indonesia
imposed export taxes on palm oil. Egypt, Cambodia, Vietnam, and
Indonesia eventually banned exports of rice. India, the world's third
largest rice exporter, banned exports of rice other than basmati. When
so many export restrictions were suddenly set in place, the quantity of
food available for export dropped sharply, triggering the large price
spike seen in international markets.
The response of the United States Government to this price spike
was timely and commendable. America provided essential global
leadership, in two important ways.
First, the United States never placed any restrictions on its own
exports of agricultural commodities. While others were imposing export
taxes or export bans, the United States continued to leave its domestic
food supply open to foreign customers. This was not an easy discipline
to maintain. America's decision to place no restriction on its own rice
exports meant prices inside the U.S. economy spiked upward along with
the international price, which led to an interlude of panic buying. In
April 2008, Costco Wholesale Corporation and Wal-Mart's Sam's Club had
to limit sales of rice to four bags per customer per visit. For wheat,
the U.S. decision not to restrict exports implied much higher operating
costs for America's baking industry, prompting the American Bakers
Association early in 2008 to send delegations to Washington to voice
loud complaint. Despite these domestic pressures, our Government never
restricted export sales.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ During a much earlier food price spike in 1973, the United
States was not as disciplined. Japan and other importers were shocked
when the United States placed a brief embargo on soybean exports in
1973.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second, when international prices spiked in 2008 the United States
dramatically increased its budget for international food aid. In April
2008, President Bush announced the release of $200 million worth of
commodities from an emergency food aid reserve for Title II, Public Law
480, and then in May 2008 the President requested from Congress an
additional $770 million as a crisis response, with roughly 80 percent
of this intended to help poor importing governments or support short-
term feeding of vulnerable populations. According to one unofficial
calculation, the United States responded to the 2008 crisis by
designating an additional $1.4 billion in food aid above already
planned funding levels. Total enacted and estimated international food
assistance spending from the United States in FY 2009 will be roughly
$2 billion.
Our policy response to the 2008 food price spike was far from
perfect, in part because our food aid programs are unnecessarily
expensive. This is because the United States does not allow any
significant sourcing of food from outside of the United States and
because shipment on more costly U.S.-flag vessels is required for 75
percent of all gross food aid tonnage. As a result an excessive 65
percent of America's food aid spending goes to administrative and
transport costs. Some economists calculate that it costs roughly twice
as much to deliver a ton of food to a recipient through this U.S. food
aid system as it would cost buying the food from a local market.\3\ The
United States is heavily criticized abroad for operating its food aid
programs this way. On the other hand, if America went to a more
efficient system based on foreign sourcing, political support for the
program here in Congress would suffer, the size of our food aid budget
would fall, and food deliveries to some needy recipients abroad might
then fall as well.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Christopher B. Barrett and Daniel G. Maxwell, ``Food Aid After
Fifty Years,'' New York: Routeledge, 2005, p. 167.
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America was also heavily criticized in 2008 for the alleged impact
of its biofuels policies on world food prices. Federal tax credits,
import tariffs, and renewable fuel mandates promoted the diversion of
American corn into fuel production, driving up international prices for
corn used as food or feed. In 2007-08, ethanol production increased to
roughly 23 percent of America's total corn use. On the other hand, much
of this diversion would have taken place in 2008 even without any U.S.
Government tax credits, tariffs, or mandates, simply due to the
unusually high oil prices that prevailed at the time. When bad things
happen it is not always the government's fault. It was mostly high oil
prices, not government policy, that drove up corn use for ethanol in
2008.
America's Less Helpful Response to Persistent Hunger
America has shown far less leadership in its policy response to the
long-term problem of chronic malnutrition in developing countries. This
hunger problem, linked especially to rural poverty, is roughly eight
times larger than the temporary problem linked to the 2007-08 price
spike.
Even before international food prices began to increase in 2007,
the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated
that there were 850 million chronically malnourished people in the
world. Even when food was cheap on the world market in 2005, in sub-
Saharan Africa 23 out of 37 countries in that region were consuming
less than their nutritional requirements and nearly one-third of all
citizens there were malnourished. The problem of hunger in these
countries derives primarily from persistent poverty, not from price
fluctuations on the world market. In Africa more than 60 percent of all
citizens work in the countryside growing crops and herding animals, and
it is because the productivity of their labor is so low (incomes
average only about $1 a day) that so many are chronically malnourished.
To understand the source of these low incomes, pay a visit to a
typical farming community in rural Africa. The farmers you will meet,
mostly women, do not have any of the things that farmers everywhere
else have required to become more productive and escape poverty:
Few have had access to formal education. Two out of three
adults are not able to read or write in any language.
Two-thirds do not have access to seeds improved by
scientific plant breeding.
Most use no nitrogen fertilizer at all, so they fail to
replace soil nutrients and their crop yields per hectare are
only one-fifth to one-tenth as high as in the United States or
in Europe.
Only 4 percent have irrigation, so when the rains fail their
crops also fail, and they must sell off their animals and
household possessions to survive until the next season.
Almost none have access to electricity, and powered
machinery is completely absent. These farmers still work the
fields with hand hoes or wooden plows pulled by animals.
Few have access to veterinary medicine, so their animals are
sick, stunted, and weak.
Most of these farmers are significantly cut off from markets
due to remoteness and high transport costs. Roughly 70 percent
of African farmers live more than a half-hour walk from the
nearest all-weather road, so most household transport is still
by foot.
Given such deficits, it is not surprising that agricultural
production in Africa has lagged behind population growth for most of
the past three decades. Per capita production of maize, Africa's most
important food staple, has actually declined 14 percent since 1980.
Over the same time period population has doubled, so the numbers of
people living in deep poverty (less than $1 a day) has doubled as well,
up to 300 million. The number of Africans classified as ``food
insecure'' by the U.S. Department of Agriculture increased to 450
million in 2006, and under a business-as-usual scenario this number
will grow by another 30 percent over the next 10 years, to reach 645
million.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research
Service, ``Food Security Assessment 2007,'' p. 10. http://
www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/GFA19/.
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One reason the current business-as-usual scenario is so bleak has
been weak leadership from the United States. Instead of taking action
to help address these persistent farm productivity deficits in Africa
over the past several decades, the United States Government essentially
walked away from the problem:
America's official development assistance to agriculture in
Africa, in real 2008 dollars, declined from more than $400
million annually in the 1980s to just $60 million by 2006, a
drop of approximately 85 percent.
Between 1985 and 2008 the number of Africans supported by
USAID for post-graduate agricultural study at American
universities declined 83 percent, down to a total of just 42
individuals today.
From the mid-1980s to 2004, USAID funding to support
national agricultural research systems (NARS) in the developing
countries as a whole fell by 75 percent, and in sub-Saharan
Africa by 77 percent.
From the mid-1980s to 2008, United States contributions to
the core research budget of the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), in real 2008
dollars, fell from more than $90 million annually to just $18.5
million.
USAID spending for collaborative agricultural research
through American universities was nearly $45 million in
constant 2008 dollars 25 years ago. As of 2007, this funding
was down to just $25 million.
These cuts were accompanied by severe agricultural
destaffing at USAID. As late as 1990 USAID still employed 181
agricultural specialists. Currently it employs only 22.
So, while Africa's rural poverty and hunger crisis was steadily
growing worse, the United States Government was steadily doing less.
Why Did the United States Stop Investing in Agricultural Development?
Beginning in the 1980s, three factors combined to push the United
States away from providing adequate assistance for agricultural
development:
First, the enormous success of the original Green Revolution on the
irrigated lands of Asia in the 1960s and 1970s left a false impression
that all of the world's food production problems had been solved. In
fact, on the nonirrigated farmlands of Africa, these problems were just
beginning to intensify.
Second, it became fashionable among most donors beginning in the
1980s to rely less on the public sector and more on the private sector,
under a so-called ``Washington Consensus'' doctrine developed inside
the IMF and the World Bank. According to this new aid doctrine, the job
of the state was mostly to stabilize the macroeconomy and then get out
of the way, so private investors and private markets could create
wealth. This approach backfired in rural Africa because the basic
public goods needed to support markets and attract private investors--
roads, power, and an educated workforce--had not yet been provided.
Third, a new fashion also arose in the 1980s among advocates for
social justice and environmental protection. These groups began to
depict the improved seeds and fertilizers of the original Green
Revolution as a problem, not a solution. They argued that only large
farmers would profit and that increased chemical use would harm the
environment. This perspective was not appropriate in Africa, where
nearly all farmers are smallholders with adequate access to land and
where fertilizer use is too low rather than too high. In Africa the
social and environmental danger isn't too much Green Revolution
farming, but far too little.
I have documented the importance of these NGO objections to Green
Revolution farming in a book published last year by Harvard University
Press.\5\ I show in this book that an influential coalition of social
justice and environmental advocates from both North America and Europe
was able to discourage international support for agricultural
development, including in Africa, beginning in the 1980s. They not only
opposed the use of modern biotechnology, such as genetic engineering;
they also campaigned against conventionally developed modern seeds and
nitrogen fertilizers, even though these were precisely the technologies
their own farmers had earlier used back home to become more productive
and escape poverty. To Africans they instead promoted agroecological or
organic farming methods, not using synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Robert Paarlberg, ``Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is
Being Kept Out of Africa.'' Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The irony is that most farmers in Africa today are already de facto
organic, because they do not use any GMOs or any nitrogen fertilizers
or any synthetic pesticides. This has not made them either productive
or prosperous. Nor has it provided any protection to Africa's rural
environment, where deforestation, soil erosion, and habitat loss caused
by the relentless expansion of low-yield farming is a growing crisis.
How to Correct America's Failing Grade in Agricultural Development
Improving America's dismal policy performance in the area of
agricultural development does not have to be difficult. We know what to
do, we know it can be done at an affordable cost, and the current
political climate even provides new space to act.
A consensus now exists among specialists, even at the World Bank,
on what to do. An extensive review conducted by the Bank in preparation
for its 2008 World Development Report concluded that more public sector
action was urgently needed: ``the visible hand of the state'' was now
needed to provide the ``core public goods'' essential to farm
productivity growth. Three kinds of public goods are needed today in
the African countryside:
Public investments in rural and agricultural education,
including for women and girls.
Public investments in agricultural science and local
agricultural research to improve crops, animals, and farming
techniques.
Public investments in rural infrastructure (roads,
electricity, crop storage) to connect farmers to markets.
Governments in Africa today endorse this consensus. At an African
Union summit meeting in Mozambique in 2003, Africa's heads of
government pledged to increase their own public spending on agriculture
up to at least 10 percent of total national spending. International
donors, including the United States, should seize upon this
constructive pledge, redirecting assistance efforts so as to partner
aggressively with African governments willing to reinvest in the
productivity of small farms.
We know exactly what this redirected assistance effort should look
like, thanks to the policy roadmap recently provided by two members of
this committee plus the supportive recommendations of a prominent
independent study group.
The widely endorsed Global Food Security Act of 2009 (S. 384),
known as the Lugar-Casey bill, would authorize significantly larger
investments in agricultural education, extension, and research, to take
full international advantage of the superior agricultural resources
found within, of America's own land grant colleges and universities.
The increased investments in institutional strengthening and
collaborative research authorized in this bill could be funded at $750
million in year one, increasing to an annual cost of $2.5 billion by
year five. Fully funding this initiative would require roughly a 10-
percent increase in America's annual development assistance budget, a
small increase alongside President Obama's own 2008 campaign pledge--
which I strongly endorse--to grow that development assistance budget by
100 percent.
A second worthy blueprint strongly parallels the Lugar-Casey bill.
This is a menu of 21 separate recommended actions called the Chicago
Initiative on Global Agricultural Development, released just 1 month
ago by an independent bipartisan study group convened by the Chicago
Council on Global Affairs, with financial support from the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation.\6\ This substantial report, which I played a
role in preparing, recommends twin thrusts in agricultural education
and agricultural research, just like Lugar-Casey. It also recommends
closer coordination with the World Bank to increase investments in
rural infrastructure, plus a substantial upgrade of agricultural staff
at USAID. The Chicago Council report estimates that implementing all 21
of its recommended actions would cost $341 million in the first year
(an increase over current programs of $255 million), and only $1.03
billion annually by year five (an increase of $950 million over current
expenditures). This implies less than a 5-percent increase in our
current development assistance budget.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ The full report and also an executive summary are available at
http://www.thechicago
council.org/globalagdevelopment/finalreport.asp
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Why is 2009 the Best Time to Take These Actions?
The danger is not that Congress will debate these proposals and
then reject them as too costly. Both of these proposals are well
researched and substantively well defended, and the implied costs are
not at all large alongside the anticipated humanitarian, economic, and
diplomatic gains. The danger instead is that a serious debate over
these proposals will never take place, amid the many distractions of
the day, and a decision will simply be deferred. This would be a costly
mistake. If new action is deferred, the business-as-usual scenario will
kick in and numbers of food insecure people in sub-Saharan Africa will
increase by another 30 percent over the next 10 years, to reach a total
of 645 million. If the new administration and Congress decide to put
off action until 2013 or 2017, the hunger problem will only become more
costly to resolve.
Fortunately, two important windows of political opportunity are
open in 2009 to support the embrace of a significant policy initiative
in this area. First, both the new administration and Congress are eager
to be seen delivering a ``real change'' in America's policies abroad,
not just at home. A decision in 2009 to reverse, at last, the 25-year
decline in U.S. support for agricultural development assistance would
be a real change, and it would be recognized as such around the world.
It would transform America overnight from being the laggard in this
area into being the global leader. With its new agricultural
development initiative on the table, America could reintroduce itself
to governments around the world--especially in Africa--with a
convincing message of hope, not fear. The payoff in farmers' fields
would not be seen immediately, but the political and diplomatic gain
would be immediate.
For those on this committee looking for an affordable way to recast
America's approach toward governments in Africa (e.g., in response to
China's growing investment presence and political influence in that
region), a new agricultural development initiative is actually one of
the most cost-effective ways to proceed. The annual budget cost is low
because the best way to support agricultural development is not with a
massive front-loaded crash program, but instead with small but steady
annual outlays developed and managed in close partnership with
recipient governments, maintained for a decade or more.
The second window of opportunity was provided by the 2008 food
price crisis itself. Memories of this crisis are still sufficiently
fresh in 2009 to motivate action on a significant new agricultural
development assistance initiative, to complement the strong leadership
we already show in emergency relief and food aid.
Both these windows of political opportunity are currently open.
They are not likely to remain open for long.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Paarlberg.
I want to thank all of you for keeping your testimonies
tight and to the time. It helps us a lot to be able to get
engaged in a good dialogue, and we appreciate it.
Mr. Paarlberg, I want to pick up, a little bit on that,
but, before I do, I want to come back to some of these farming
practices and assertions you made.Let me ask you, now, each of
you perhaps: if you're a farmer out in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa,
or Minnesota, for instance, and you're listening to us talk,
here, about helping the farmers in Africa to be able to
compete, essentially. And, to some degree, part of the reason
Doha has been at a gridlock in these last years is European and
other ``subsidy-ized'' farming entities' resistance to change.
It's been a long argument by a lot of people for some period of
time thatyou need to empower less-developed-country farmers to
be able to sell their goods so they can develop. How do you
make that argumentas to why this is so important to us, and why
it is worth this fight?
Secretary Glickman.
Mr. Glickman. It's funny, because one of the things that we
talk about it in the report--is something that's referred to as
the Bumpers amendment, which--unfortunately, a very good man
has had his name tied to an amendment which I think is not very
productive--it says that, ``We cannot provide scientific and
technical assistance to countries and to programs in other
countries that might result in crops competitive to the United
States.'' That was basically done back in the '80s to prevent
narcotics' policy that would try to transfer people from
growing cocaine to, let's say, soybeans and other kinds of
things.
I would make the following comments.
First, The Chicago Council did some polling data which
indicates that people in this country are, in fact, supportive
of these efforts, both rural and urban people.
Second, we're all in this together. Problems afflicting
agriculture, whether you're in the lush farmlands of Indiana or
Kansas or in the dry lands of the Sahel or South Asia, are
going to face a lot of the similar problems as it relates to
drought, to climate change, and so, we're no longer separate
parties to these things.
Third, by improving the lifestyle of people around the
world, they're going to buy more things. They may buy them
locally, they may buy them from us, but a rising tide lists all
boats in the world, including agriculture generally.
And fourth, I think that the time for this kind of
parochial attitude that we've had for so many years is no
longer relevant in the world that we live in today. And I think
people understand that, too.
The Chairman. Well, is it not more practical to make the
argument, if these are the people who are malnourished, and
they're indigenous in their own country, that it might be
premature to be talking about opening up to the marketplace and
selling elsewhere? I mean, don't they first have to, you know,
grow for themselves?
Mr. Glickman. Well, there is some capability for export
even in some of the markets we're talking about today, but the
idea is to create indigenous agriculture production and to help
people help themselves. And we can do a lot better job of that,
and, in the process, we can change their lives internally, and
it will help the United States and the democracies of the world
deal with the political problems that result from extreme
poverty and malnutrition that never seem to get better.
The Chairman. Yes, Dr. Bertini.
Ms. Bertini. Mr. Chairman, I would add that if we were
talking to farmers in the Midwest, who are very productive and
do a lot of exporting themselves, that when they think about
what markets might be available when their daughters and sons
are taking over their farms, they have to look to opportunities
in the developing world to be able to sell their goods in the
future. They won't be able to sell more in Europe, Japan, or
other mature markets. But, the places where there are more
people and more possibilities for economic improvement are in
the developing world, and that it's, therefore, in their
commercial interests over----
The Chairman. Is that only for a crop-specific that can't
be grown in one of those other countries?
Ms. Bertini. Not----
The Chairman. How are you going to compete with our costs
of energy and production, transit to that other country, versus
an indigenous production of the same crop?
Ms. Bertini. Well, depending on the climate, depending on
the soil--there is a lot of different things that depend on
what might work in any given region of the world, so it's not
necessarily competing, on one side or the other, it's really
about markets. And we're talking about the opportunity for
more--especially more indigenous growth, which will improve
economic livelihoods so that people can buy more grain or
manufactured goods.
The Chairman. More than they're able to produce,
themselves.
Ms. Bertini. Yes, and more than what they can purchase now.
The Chairman. Anybody else want to add to that?
Mr. Beckmann. I do. Bread for the World instituted--
commissioned a study by the International Food Policy Research
Institute on this issue, and if the low-income countries of
Africa and South Asia could achieve gross comparable to, say,
the, you know, gross of East Asia, that would be very good for
United States agriculture, that the--the negative--any negative
effect of competition is outweighed by the expansion of
incomes. Because poor people in the world are spending two-
thirds of everything they have on food, so when their income
goes up, they buy more food, including a little bit more food
imports. So, in fact, U.S. agriculture has a clear stake in
global development. Where it gets a little stickier is when--on
the broader issues of reform of U.S. agriculture and trade
policies, but--in fact, our--as--you know, our foreign policies
don't--are not optimal for farm and rural people in America, so
it is very possible, especially in the context of, say,
finishing the Doha Round, to have a reform of global
agriculture that would be better for virtually all U.S.
farmers, certainly for farm and rural people who are really
struggling, and also wildly better for farmers in poor
countries.
The Chairman. Mr. Paarlberg, let me take you up on this
issue. Obviously, there's been a very heated debate for a
number of years about GMO and agricultural practices. I learned
a lot about this in '04, when I was running around the country.
I learned a lot about farming I didn't know, even thoughwe have
a lot of farms in Massachusetts, actually. We have a big
contingent of farms, still. We used to have a lot more dairy
than we have today. But, one of the things I learned was the
degree to which Iowa soil is tiled, and you go down below
whatever that 6-foot, 5-foot level is, and you run tile. The
current nitrate runoff into the Des Moines River and the Iowa
River, and ultimately in Missouri and into the Mississippi and
down into the Gulf of Mexico, creates an enormous 5,000-square-
mile dead zone every year, not to mention what it does in terms
of quality of drinking and so forth. This is true all over our
country. Our non-source-point--point-source runoff is a huge
problem.
Increasingly, there is an appetite in America for organic
food, for non-processed, for good, healthy, basic food. And it
seems to me that that's not something that we ought to dismiss
casually. Many, many people are learning a lot more about
health through good nutrition, through eating more effectively,
better; and there's a big movement in this country, a lot of
stores growing up now, a lot of supermarkets, that are making
it a practice only to sell organic; and more and more people,
as they learn more and more, are turning towards that.
You seem to sort of push that aside, and I wonder if that's
wise for us, in this battle, not to sort of honor and respect
that movement more effectively and perhaps, you know, fashion
policies accordingly.
Mr. Paarlberg. In order to be certified as an organic
grower, you have to reduce your use of nitrogen fertilizer to
zero. In Africa today, average applications of nitrogen
fertilizer are about 9 kilograms per hectare. The African
agricultural development effort under NEPAD has set, as a
target for Africa, increasing from 9 kilograms up to about 50
kilograms per hectare, which I think is a suitable goal. In the
United States, where we apply more than 100 kilograms per
hectare, we do get nitrogen runoff and a dead zone in the Gulf
of Mexico. I think, though, you have to be sophisticated enough
to set a target at 50 and stay below 100 rather than reacting
to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico by telling farmers in
Africa they have to go to zero. Too many farmers in Africa are
at zero today, and their crop yields are only one-fifth or one-
tenth as high as in the United States.
The Chairman. So, it's really the balance that you're----
Mr. Paarlberg. Absolutely.
The Chairman. [continuing]. Talking about----
Mr. Paarlberg. Absolutely.
The Chairman. [continuing]. More than anything else, a fair
balance, in a sense.
Senator Lugar.
Senator Lugar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just reiterate some of the points that I think are
important about food security and our legislative response, on
which many of you have commented.
First of all, a White House food coordinator, or somebody
literally with the authority to speak for the President of the
United States and to bring together USAID, the Department of
Agriculture, anybody else involved in food security--we've gone
this route, in large part, because reorganizing each of these
departments, reforming each one of these, is really an arduous
task. And, from your personal experience, you appreciate that.
But, without having that kind of reorganization, somebody who
is in charge really is required if we're to make this kind of
difference. The authority to purchase some food aid locally and
regionally rather than shipping it from the United States will
pose challenges, but is necessary to increase our
responsiveness and flexibility to creses. So, this is quite a
charge. This coordinator will not have an easy life.
But, I would say that, without this, we're simply whistling
in the dark, in a way; we're sort of hoping for good things and
good vibes to happen to people.
And following that, as you've mentioned, this idea that the
food might be purchased in-country is a tremendously important
thought, quite apart from the transportation dilemma. I think
it has to occur along with reforms that may come with a Doha
Round or its successor. Again and again, as we've discussed
today, the plight of the American farmer is not so much that
someone in Africa might begin to grow corn more efficiently,
but it's the fact that we are blocked from exporting the corn
that we have, by all kinds of trade restrictions, embargoes,
blockages, tariff. The bollixed-up world trade system with
regard to agriculture makes a prodigious problem out of this,
even if we have the food czar and we manage to realize greater
efficiencies in our policies and programs.
And finally, I appreciate your response, Dr. Paarlberg, to
the Chairman's question about genetically modified
technologies. I think the idea of a balanced, thoughtful,
scientific approach to this is important. But, I would just say
that this is virtually impossible, to get to the yields we're
talking about, without taking seriously seed, fertilizer, the
type of thing that might come from extension services, from
education, and what have you. And I've argued this, during this
past August over in Brussels, with a good number of people. The
U.N. Ambassador has come to my office now a couple of times to
indicate that various fertilizers, seeds, might be possible in
Europe.
But, I've also found parliamentarians in Europe who are
rock solid against any change. The Africans can starve, as far
as they're concerned, the purity of the situation so paramount
in their focus. And furthermore, they don't plan to export very
much, and they're feeding their people, as it is, and not that
worried about it.
Now, given all of that, first of all, Secretary Glickman,
how do we get to the food czar? What is likely to be the
prospects of that occurring?
Mr. Glickman. Well, you do need an overall leader in the
White House. It's got to be somebody with close ties to the
President who has access to the Oval Office. If you don't have
that, you could have czars spelled a thousand different ways
and it wouldn't make any difference.
Senator Lugar. Everybody's very remote right now from the
White House, I'm afraid, in who's involved in the food
business.
Mr. Glickman. Yes. What we recommended is that the National
Security Council be the place where this person be housed,
largely because this is a national security issue, and--finding
one person in there that could take this responsibility--there
may be other ways to skin this cat, but it's got to be somebody
close to the President, who has the President's confidence, and
can take the leadership role in government-wide coordination of
these issues.
Second, you have to have an implementing agency that has
teeth and muscle, and that's AID; and right now it has no teeth
and no muscle, and not much else, I will have to tell you. It's
been denuded. I don't say get rid of it, I say strengthen it
and give it the kind of authority that it needs to carry out
its tasks to do the kinds of things that we're talking about
here.
And this needs to be within the ambit, however, of a White
House, I believe, that is exerting proper management and
coordination over the whole thing.
And if I just can make a point to both and Senator Kerry on
the organic issue, I was in the USDA when we implemented the
Organic Standards Act. It's a very positive thing for American
agriculture. But, it is not inconsistent with good science, to
increase yields and deal with crop protection and drought
resistance while using some of these new technologies. And it
also can be done, not only compatibly, but extremely
successfully, while protecting the environment at the same
time. So, I agree with the point, that there is a balance here,
but it's not inconsistent.
Senator Lugar. Ms. Bertini, do you have a comment?
Ms. Bertini. Yes, Senator. To highlight what Dan said about
USAID, it's critical that we have a strong tool--in this case,
agency--for carrying out whatever are our policies. And it
certainly was the agreement of our group that we believe that
should be AID and we do not believe that it's in that place
right now. And we think that a lot of attention needs to be
drawn there.
But, I want take further your thought, Senator, about the
coordination. Yes, there has to be coordination led from the
White House, and direction from the White House, but the
coordination has to go beyond--and I know you mean it--to go
beyond what we do in Washington, but into what we do in each
country where we operate. And Reverend Beckmann mentioned
something about this before, but think about it from the
perspective of the farmer or the NGO or the government in
Africa who has to say, ``Now, do I go to talk to the AID
administrator or is it the PEPFAR person, or do I go to MCC, or
maybe I should find the Ag attache?'' I mean, what do they do?
And we do not have a coordinated effort, which we really must
have, in each country in which we operate. That's critically
important.
On your point about food purchase, we also had a strong
consensus that there should be significantly more ability for
the U.S. Government to allow food purchasing in developing
countries to support local agriculture and also to cut down on
a lot of the cost, allow food to arrive faster, and have food
that people are used to in the region,. Local transport costs
are also dramatically cheaper than in-kind transportation
costs.
For a long time, this has been proposed, but never approved
by Congress. So, we believe that that's very important.
However, we have to underline the fact that, although most
countries have gone almost exclusively to food purchase, we
don't think we should eliminate food aid in kind all together,
because there's an important role for that, especially in
emergencies, when there are no other options.
Senator Lugar. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thanks, Senator Lugar. Appreciate it.
Senator Casey.
Senator Casey. Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling the
hearing, and I appreciate the leadership you've provided, and
Senator Lugar's, working with us on this bill.
I wanted to explore some immediate issues, some of which
each of you have addressed in your testimony. I guess there's
some sense now that, as bad as last year was, as bad as the
crisis has been, that it could be even worse in the immediate
future. And the numbers are just--I can't even begin to
comprehend the numbers; I don't think anyone can--looking at
the data, some 75 million more people could be affected, and we
may be at a point where it could get a lot worse than that. So,
the urgency of this is profound, almost indescribable. And when
people come to a hearing like this, or when they follow this
issue, they arrive at a conclusion as to what they should do,
probably based upon a couple of different pathways to get
there.
One is, I think, the people at this hearing--our witnesses
as well as others in the audience--are here for a lot of
reasons. Most of us here are summoned by our conscience. That's
one reason we're here. Others, who may not be as troubled by
the issue, may arrive at a conclusion about this issue just
based upon national security, because it does have national or
international security implications. When someone is hungry,
they're more likely to be influenced by people who say, ``I can
help you if you join my cause,'' and that cause may be violent
and destructive, against all of our interests and our safety.
Obviously, we believe this bill should pass very quickly.
That's an immediate step. But, I guess I wanted to have each of
you briefly--and I know we have limited time--to address the
immediate challenge we have, in terms of the urgency of it? And
what are the immediate steps we have to take to meet that
challenge? Because I believe it's that urgent. And there'll be
some who will say, ``You know, we're in a recession here in the
United States, why do we need to be doing more around the
world?'' And I think it's a very compelling case. But, maybe
just outline for us quickly your thoughts we can just go from
right to left.
Mr. Glickman. I think you raise excellent points. Again,
this booklet is kind of a roadmap----
Senator Casey. Right.
Mr. Glickman. [continuing]. Or, a strategic plan to get
from here to there, so it has a variety of short- and long-term
steps. And if you look at it, it'll say what to do the first
year, second year, third year, fourth year. And your bill is
fully consistent with everything that we're talking about here.
In fact, it can't be implemented unless we pass legislation
like the kind that you're talking about.
There are a multitude of things that have to be done, from
the national government being committed to doing what it needs
to do, the amount to spend here in the first year is about $340
million or so; last year, $1.03 billion a year. I mean, in the
big scheme of what we're talking about, in terms of internal
institutions in this country, it is a drop in the bucket, and
this one might actually save some lives in the process, as
well.
So, you know, I can't give you a priority-setting, other
than to say that it's got to be on the top of our list of
priorities.
I would say one other thing, too. You know, when I was a
USDA, I often found that, in our national government, in the
scheme of things, agriculture often took a backseat to
policymakers. I don't know if--Senator Lugar can nod at that.
There are other sexier issues that often come up. But, you
know, you go back to the point that a person's nutrition
capability is at the heart of our very existence. And I think
what your bill does is to reiterate to the world that food and
agricultural production, as a part of our global assistance, is
a priority; it is not a secondary factor. And I think, too
often in today's world, farmers and agriculture just do not get
the attention that they deserve, in terms of leading the world.
Senator Casey. Dan, I want to--just wonder if we can follow
up briefly--I want to thank you for what you said and also for
your testimony. And I missed it; I was running back and forth
between meetings. But, the point that you made about someone in
the White House who can get in to the Oval Office is essential.
Anyone who understands anything about government, even at much
lower levels, knows that that kind of personal, immediate
access is going to be, I believe, critically important.
Thank you.
Ms. Bertini.
Ms. Bertini. Thank you, Senator.
Two things. One, in terms of the American public, one of
the expertise of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs is to
actually conduct surveys about what Americans think about
foreign relations and foreign affairs. And in our book we've
got a lot of the data from the recent survey that you might
find useful. But, one of the things that I've found
particularly important was that 42 percent of the American
people believe it's very important to combat global hunger, and
believe it should be a foreign policy priority. And that's a
pretty significant percentage.
So, I think, even given what we are living through in this
country, there may be some reasonably strong support for a
renewed interest in agricultural development. And people
understand, basically, the concept of helping people be able to
help themselves----
Senator Casey. Right.
Ms. Bertini. [continuing]. In a way that sometimes
resonates in a stronger manner.
Second is that, during my tenure as executive director of
the World Food Program--to your point about, Why now?--I found
that when the U.S. took a position, especially a new position
or a different position, or a considerably stronger position
than they had in the past, about aid-related issues, that there
was a snowball effect of many other donors then doing something
similar. Now, in some areas, like this issue about purchasing
food locally instead of in-kind, the U.S. has been behind the
other donors, but I absolutely believe that if the U.S. showed
strong leadership in agricultural development, that there would
be a new and fast list of countries who would also change their
priorities. Because it hasn't been just the U.S., it's been
virtually all the donor countries who have let this fall almost
off the map. I think the sooner the U.S. starts, the more
others will join, and the stronger the international effort
will be.
Senator Casey. So, it's about leadership. Yeah. Thank you.
Mr. Beckmann. I think there's a context of hope here over
the last 15 years. Roughly 400 million people have escaped from
extreme poverty, and over the last 2 years about 100 million
have been driven back into extreme poverty. So, first, that
pattern, that's what makes for a security issue, because you
have this tremendous--you know, people going--promise, and then
disappointment. It also is a hopeful situation, because if we
can help the developing countries recover and get through the
recession, in fact, they can contribute to our own economic
dynamism.
One immediate thing that can be done, even more quickly
than legislation, as important as that is, is, in the
National--in the White House right now, it's my sense that,
even development--broadly, development is not very strongly
represented within the National Security Council. When the
President set up the National Security Council, there is no
voice within the Council--for example, the administrator of
USAID is not in the National Security Council, so--and within
the staffing of the National Security Council, development--any
concern about development or food security is down a couple of
rungs. So, even before you get to the legislation getting the
global food security coordinator, which is important, just in
talking with the White House you might suggest that they raise
the issue of hunger and poverty within the National Security
Council right now. I think it's just an oversight. I think
General Jones is really committed to these things, but somehow
it--it does seem to be me to be an oversight.
Senator Casey. Mr. Paarlberg, I know I'm a minute and a
half over my time. [Laughter.]
Mr. Paarlberg. OK.
Senator Casey. Putting a little pressure on you.
Mr. Paarlberg. You asked a good question, ``Why now?'' And
I would say, because there are two windows of opportunity open,
at the moment, that won't be open forever. First, memories of
the 2008 international price spike are still fresh. And second,
we have a new administration and a new Congress in Washington
and at the same time, a President with a personal interest in
Africa. Either the Lugar-Casey bill or the Chicago initiative
would give U.S. foreign policymakers opportunity to reintroduce
themselves to Africans, talking about something other than
democratization, health, and education. Those are important.
America's been the leader there. But, the Chinese have 8,400
companies in Africa right now making investments in
infrastructure and in development. Africans are interested in
that, too. This initiative would give the United States a way
to avoid being finessed by those huge Chinese investments. You
know, we're losing influence now because we're not doing enough
on development; this is a response to that.
Senator Casey. Thanks so much.
Thanks, to each of you.
The Chairman. Senator Risch.
Senator Risch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, let me say that I want to thank the chairman
and ranking member for holding this important hearing. And I
have a question for the panel.
Before I do that, though, with all due respect--and I mean
that sincerely, Mr. Chairman--I--this business of nitrate/
nitrite runoff, phosphate runoff, certainly is a problem in
some areas, but I grow small grains and hay and beef, and I can
tell you that, without fertilizer, you're not going to be in
business very long.
Having said that, the other side of the coin is just as
important. If you overfertilize, you're also not going to be in
business very long, because--over the last 5 years, the price
of fertilizer has just spiked because of the--number one,
because of world demand; and second, of course, because of the
oil prices. So, I think that a person in Africa, or, for that
matter, America or anywhere else, realizes that the difference
between a 120-bushel crop versus a 30- or 40-bushel crop is the
money you spend on fertilizer; and the money you spend on
fertilizer returns, four to one, or something like that. So,
it's important.
The difficulty I have with the use of fertilizer over there
is the fact that it is so expensive, that the transportation--
the manufacture of it and the transportation of it is a
challenge, to me, to say the least.
This is the question I have for the panel. And I'd ask each
of you to comment on in briefly. One of the things we have not
spent much time in this hearing talking about is the effect of
political instability and war and failed states on feeding
people. We all know that the army eats first--the warriors eat
first. And that goes back thousands of years. That's always the
way it's been. And we have a lot of troubled spots in the
world, and I'd like to get your comments on the state of
affairs right now with the political instability in the world
and how it affects feeding people in the world. If each of you
could give me a brief shot at that, I would sincerely
appreciate it.
Ms. Bertini. Yes, Senator.
When I was with the World Food Program, most of our work,
in fact, was working with people who were cut off from food,
and often by war or civil strife, and sometimes by natural
disasters. And we saw many, many millions of people go through
this strife, of not only living amidst violence, but not being
able to have enough food in that process. But, what we did see
was persistent efforts on the part of the international
community, not only to bring peace in these areas, but to get
food through even in the most difficult situations; negotiating
with warring factions to stop so that food can move through,
for instance; negotiating with clans to allow food delivery,
whether it as in Somalia or Afghanistan or the Congo. So, there
is a strong effort to do it.
But, yes, we also had to try to strategize to ensure that
the kind of food we were sending actually would get to the
people and not get diverted. Sometimes, for instance, we chose
food that wouldn't be very acceptable to soldiers to eat, like
bulghur wheat, for instance, instead of rice, because it was
more likely to actually get in the stomachs of the women
preparing it and the children eating it.
What we also found, though, was, over time, so many of
these countries were able to survive and begin to rebuild --for
instance, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Angola. These were
areas where for years, there was a lot of attention, and now
there's been a fair amount of success. And this is one point
that shows why food aid is important, because there's not much
else we could do except to try to get food aid to these people
during this time, but also be able to help, as soon as the
country is stable enough, with agricultural development.
Senator Risch. Thank you.
Mr. Glickman. Just a couple of things onto what Catherine
said.
One is, we recommend significantly augmenting the Peace
Corps' agriculture assistance personnel. I've forgotten what
the numbers are, but the whole idea is, you need a holistic
effort to go in and help the countries rebuild. The Peace Corps
has been very, very successful. It's also been funded at rather
lower levels. It used to have a great agriculture component to
it, and we advocate increasing it.
And the second thing is, the land grant institutions in
America, coordinating with similar institutions overseas, can
have a great influence in both the economic and political
structures of those countries, particularly if you develop
longer-term agricultural initiatives on the research and
scientific basis.
Mr. Beckmann. The--one point is just that more than 90
percent of the hungry people in the world are in places that
are at peace, so there are places like Mtimbe, Mozambique--I
don't know if you heard what I told about visiting this little
place. They did have war, for 16 years, and terrible atrocities
in this little place I visited in December. But, since 1992,
Mozambique has managed to be at peace. But, still, people are
really hungry and the kids are dying. So, it's--we have--in
those--it tends to be the violent places, the humanitarian
crises that get in the newspaper, but there's much more
suffering in faraway, distant places that are remote from the
cameras. And in a lot of those places, it's really relatively
easy to make interventions that can help people get out of
hunger.
If I may just follow up on Secretary Glickman's point about
the Peace Corps and universities. In my--what I would like to
see, in terms of this new development agency, would be an
agency that includes the Peace Corps, includes the
universities, that's participatory, that has a great Web site,
that's sort of Obamaesque, if you will, so that it involves all
Americans in the effort to reduce poverty, and also, in
developing countries, that it works in a participatory way with
the governments and communities.
Mr. Paarlberg. I'd just add, quickly, that if the goal is
to reduce political instability and unrest, sometimes it's best
to focus more of your diplomacy on nonmilitary affairs.
Certainly, giving such heavy assistance to the Pakistani
military, as we've done over the years, hasn't completely
stabilized that country.
In Africa, things are actually improving. There are 47
countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and Freedom House now ranks
more than 20 of them as democracies. Ghana just had a very
successful presidential election, complete with a runoff, peace
and quiet, and a change of authorities. Tanzania has never had
a civil war. Uganda has come back from its civil war. The
problem in Uganda isn't political unrest or instability, it's
the fact that the government doesn't invest enough in farmers
and in agriculture. So, certainly you wouldn't want to place
your bets on a new program in Zimbabwe or in Sudan or in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo right now, but, as David says,
there are many places in Africa where the kind of work that is
proposed, both in the Lugar-Casey bill and in the Chicago
initiative, can go forward with every chance of success.
Senator Risch. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.----
Senator Lugar [presiding]. Thank you, Senator Risch.
Senator Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Senator Lugar.
Secretary Glickman, so if you're going to run for the
Senate, does that mean I get to go to the Motion Picture
Association? [Laughter.]
Mr. Glickman. That is a true revolving door. [Laughter.]
Senator Shaheen. Well, it's very nice to be able to welcome
you here today. And thank you for your kind words.
You talked about, if we were going to have a food czar or
someone in charge, that that person would need to have access
to the President and be involved in decisionmaking. But, we
heard, I think, both from Reverend Beckmann and Dr. Bertini,
that one of the issues is not just the central coordination,
but it's also the coordination on the ground in-country. And as
someone who has dealt with those kinds of challenges in the
past as Secretary of Agriculture, what could be done to better
address that in-country coordination? Recognizing that as much
as we all might like to have one central agency that's doing
this, that's not going to happen right away. And so, how do we
address that coordination function?
Mr. Glickman. Well, it's interesting. You know, the U.S.
has developed, ironically, the most decentralized research and
education extension network probably in the history of the
world. And I'm not saying we necessarily could replicate that
anywhere else, but part of our great strength in agriculture
productivity is that it is not top-down, it is bottom-up, in
how we continue to train a generation of people involved in
agricultural issues.
But, I would make a couple of points. One is, is that I
think you do need somebody close to the President who is
keeping his or her finger on it and can work the process in an
aggressive way, because governmental the agencies don't respond
very well, I can tell you, unless the White House is involved
and engaged. And the same thing is true with Congress--it has
to be involved and engaged.
But, I think the implementing is done, not at the czar
level, whatever----
Senator Shaheen. Right.
Mr. Glickman. [continuing]. You call it. Has to be done
through a coordinated relationship between what I consider as
AID and all of the partnerships and nonprofits and universities
and NGOs and other agencies out there. You have a lot of
agencies in government, for example, who do a tremendous amount
of work in research. Much of this is applicable to growing
crops and raising animals, not only at USDA, but you have the
whole research establishment at the National Institutes of
Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Defense
Department, among other places. That's where your coordinator
needs to kind of be pulling the people along to talk to each
other. And unless somebody is yielding the hammer, they don't
talk to each other. I've experienced that over and over again.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Ms.--yes, Reverend Beckmann, did you want to respond?
Mr. Beckmann. One thing that could be done in the short
term is to--if the administration appoints a really strong
personality as head of USAID, to--with--and signals an intent
to find a way to pull USAID, MCA, PEPFAR, and maybe the Peace
Corps together--but, if that person is a well-known political
figure, that--just the force of that person can help to get
these agencies to work together until the legislation can get
accomplished.
But, in the end, it's got to be legislation. In Mozambique,
MCA, PEPFAR, USAID are all in the same building. I talk to
staff of the three agencies. It's clear to me that they don't
know much about what each other's doing. Well, maybe at the
top, they do. And then, in Mozambique, there's a Group of 19,
which is all--almost all the--almost all the governments that
are assisting Mozambique, and they meet to coordinate in
support of Mozambique's development objectives. The two
countries that are not part of the Group of 19 are China and
the USA. And the USA can't be part of it because our aid
programs are so earmarked that the local people--our local
people can't be responsive to what the local priorities are.
They--when they get there, they know they've got to do so
much--in which sector they've got to work. So, it does--it's
going to require legislation to fix it.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Ms. Bertini, you pointed out that it's women who, in much
of the world, particularly the developing world, produce half
the world's food crops, and between 60 and 80 percent of food
crops in the developing world. Can you talk a little bit about
how we can encourage women in those countries to continue to
become more involved in agricultural productivity and how we
address--or how we can help address some of the cultural
barriers to giving women more opportunity in those countries?
Ms. Bertini. Yes, Senator, I'd be happy to.
Women do the vast majority of the work in agriculture. And,
first of all, from our perspective, before I get to theirs--
from our perspective, we have to acknowledge that and build our
systems around it. We have to listen to them. When we decide
we're going to do something in a particular country, and we've
decided, in Washington, and we're going to go off and do it,
and we haven't really listened to the people that may be the
beneficiaries, we're never going to be as effective as we could
if we listened to what their priorities are, what their needs
are. And since women aren't in any power structure anywhere,
except maybe here on this committee----
[Laughter.]
Ms. Bertini. [continuing]. They----
Senator Shaheen. I think I have the least seniority here--
--
[Laughter.]
Senator Shaheen. [continuing]. On the committee. So.
Ms. Bertini. [continuing]. Their job isn't to come to the
meetings, they're not the mayor, they're not the people that
we're going to get, even if we go and make a kind of pro forma
discussion with the local community. So, we have to, as
development experts, find ways to listen to, and reach, those
women. And we did this at WFP, so I could share with you,
separately, some of the ways that that could be done. And the
Gates Foundation is trying to work on this, as well. But, we
have to do it, as policymakers.
Then, from the woman's perspective--first of all, we have
to be sure she's educated. She has to at least go to school.
Because educated farmers, according to International Food
Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), are much more productive
than farmers that are not educated.. And there are more women
who are uneducated than there are men. But yet, women are
mostly farmers. So, we have to do better on ensuring that girls
have education.
Then, we have to think about the kind of advice they get
along the way. For instance, there's a lot of work that needs
to be done to support and improve extension in Africa and South
Asia, but IFPRI finds that women farmers are most likely to
listen to other women farmers, but currently most of the
extension workers are men. Something like 5 percent of the
extension workers are women, and 80 of the farmers are women.
What's wrong with this picture? We've got to do more to ensure
that the methods of communicating with women in the fields is
actually an effective method of operation.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Yes, Dr.----
Mr. Paarlberg. Some of the things you can do to help women
are not immediately obviously gender-specific, but if you built
more wells and roads, women wouldn't have to spend hours every
day carrying punishing loads over long distances, walking to
fetch wood and water. That would free them up to be more
productive in the fields and to take better care of their
families.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you all. My time is up.
Senator Lugar. Thank you very much, Senator Shaheen.
Let me just conclude, if I may, with a couple of questions
to the panel, and then we'll proceed with our next panel.
Right now, a great deal of discussion of our coming plans
in Afghanistan and Pakistan surround agriculture. Frequently,
people point out that whether it's from trying to win the
support of people in the hustings of those countries or, in
fact, trying to provide some degree of sustainable agriculture
that there will have to be some substitution for the poppy
crops. And what, indeed, could be substituted? And who, indeed,
would bring the expertise, the instruction, the seeds, and what
have you, to farmers that might, in fact, make a living there?
In Pakistan, it's a more general situation in which, because of
the cosponsorship with my former chairman, Senator Biden, and
now with my current chairman, Senator Kerry, the so-called
Kerry-Lugar bill, providing for money for food, education, and
health in Pakistan, receives far more headlines daily in
Pakistan than anything we are doing with regard to our military
situation, largely because the people of Pakistan are
interested in food and development. Many are among the dying
groups that we're talking about today.
It's sort of an interesting divide in which vital national
interests in Pakistan and Afghanistan with its focus on
counterinsurgency and the stability of fragile governments are
justaposed with a populations that could be a force for
stabilization, but that is interested in development and
economic growth.
Now, I mention this because we've discussed, today, why
would anyone pay attention to the food coordinator quite apart
from the agencies that manage food security programs. Knowing
that resources have declined at USAID and I'd just simply ask
for your thoughts, I think Reverend Beckmann has addressed
this, in a way, in terms of popular support in the country for
these programs. Your organization, Bread for the World, brings
a great deal of popular support for feeding people, for the
humanitarian cause that we've talked about, basically. But,
you've also talked today a little bit about how Members of
Congress might be influenced, why Senators and Members of the
House might pay more attention to this. Could you address this
a little bit more, just from your organizational outlook, as
one who tries to change public opinion?
Mr. Beckmann. Well, I think, in fact, public support for
agricultural development, for development generally, is really
strong. Anytime we do focus groups on how Americans think about
hunger and poverty, somebody in the focus group says, ``You
know, you can teach a man to''--and they say that, ``teach a
man to fish'' as if it had never been said before, and
everybody in the focus group said, ``Yeah, we've got to teach
the man to fish.'' So, Americans get that it's not--you know,
that, as important as giving people--hungry people food is,
that that is--that's not the optimal way to help people get on
their own feet so they can feed their own families.
All the polls show that there is increased strong support
for efforts to reduce hunger and poverty, especially if they
are effective, if they--you know, people are concerned about
wasting foreign aid, so we've got to show them that, in fact,
we're working to make it more effective. It is effective, it
can be more effective. And also, Americans love programs that
help people get on their own feet, so education for girls,
helping farmers be more productive. The public support is
actually quite strong. And outside the Beltway, the public
support is strongest for reducing hunger, poverty, and disease,
compared to, say, the national security motives.
It's also true that reducing hunger and poverty in the
world is good for our national security. It's also good for our
economy, because people around--the developing countries,
especially poor people in developing countries, there's a lot
of dynamism there. And with just a little help for them to get
through this crisis, the recession in particular, they can
contribute to global economic recovery.
Senator Lugar. Let me just ask, Secretary Glickman or Ms.
Bertini, with the Chicago report, which is a remarkable report,
how are you proceeding to gain more recognition of this report?
Is anybody in the administration interested in the report, or
other Members of Congress, outside our committee?
Mr. Glickman. Well, I would say that we started with you.
And----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Glickman. And because you and others have been leaders
in the effort--but, we've been making the rounds on Capitol
Hill, and the White House and executive branch, as well, and
we're going over to the State Department today, and we're using
whatever media connections we have.
Our work is not so much to draw attention to the report--
although we think the report is, as I said, a good roadmap and
strategic plan over the next 5 years to get things done, but to
highlight the interest and enhance the popular support for
these issues so that you all can do what you need to do to get
the authorization and appropriations' legislative processes
moving. So, our goal is to be helpful to you all, frankly.
Senator Lugar. Well, we appreciate that.
Finally, Dr. Paarlberg, let me just ask about your
remarkable book, ``Starved for Science,'' that brings to the
fore this question we've discussed a little bit with
genetically modified seed and fertilizer today. It seems to me
that this is such an important issue because of the emotions
that many people attache to the issue. As I mentioned, these
folks I visited with in Brussels, for them, it's almost a
theological view. You know, we can talk about starving people,
but----
Mr. Beckmann. Senator, I take offense----
[Laughter.]
Senator Lugar. I apologize. But, a certain type of
theology, perhaps. [Laughter.]
You were talking about starving people, but this is
secondary to their thought that somehow or other something is
being poisoned by these technologies. And I keep running up
against that, in visiting with European delegations, even
foreign ministers, who really haven't quite caught the gleam
yet. This is a huge foreign policy dilemma, in addition to
being a scientific one. But, how have you gone about your
research on this subject, the ideas that you've presented so
well in your book?
Mr. Paarlberg. Well, I've always been surprised at how few
critics of this technology are actually aware farmers that
plant genetically modified varieties of corn or soybeans or
cotton in the United States, as a consequence, can control
weeds and insects with fewer chemical sprays. And I'm always
surprised to learn that the critics of this technology in
Europe aren't aware that their own scientific academies have
repeatedly stated, in writing, that there's no evidence of any
new risk to human health or the environment from any of these
genetically engineered seeds that are currently on the market.
But, they want to see evidence of benefits for poor farmers
in developing countries. And I think you're going to see that
more clearly when the next generation of genetically engineered
crops becomes commercially available. In the next several
years, farmers in the United States and Brazil and Argentina
and Canada will be able to start planting varieties of corn
that's better able to tolerate drought. Now, that'll be good,
but the farmers that really need that drought-tolerance trait
are the farmers in Africa, who are repeatedly driven back into
poverty when their crops fail because the rains have failed.
So, my hope is that the availability of this new generation
of technologies, with more compelling benefits to offer
directly to poor farmers in Africa, will break through some of
the fog that's gotten in the way of political acceptance in
Europe, so far.
Senator Lugar. Well, I've been especially moved by your
book and the things that you've had to say, just from my own
experience, that I've touched upon briefly. We have 604 acres
inside the city of limits of Indianapolis. And this is a
situation, because of that location, in which all the wildlife
of Decatur Township has congregated on our farm. [Laughter.]
Now, we've been using genetically modified seed and
fertilizer from the time that my dad sort of taught me what
this is all about, and his yields then were 40 bushels to the
acre; we're now getting, routinely, 160. This is during my
lifetime. I've seen it, and this is why I feel so strongly
about it as we talk about the need for productive agriculture.
And it didn't happen by chance. The Purdue University people,
who were very, very helpful, in terms of all the extension work
and that's important, likewise.
So, if I take on--I hate to use another religious thought--
an evangelistic view of this----
[Laughter.]
Senator Lugar. [continuing]. Why, so be it, because I've
seen it, lived it, and this is why I've invited people from
other countries to come to our farm, as sometimes they do, to
celebrate Earth Day or other significant events of that sort.
But, I thank all four of you for really remarkable
testimony. You've been tremendously helpful to our own
understanding and, I hope, for all who have listened to this
hearing. So, we thank you.
And we welcome, now, a second panel for our discussion
today, which will be Mr. Edwin Price, associate vice chancellor
and director of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International
Agriculture, at College Station, Texas, and Mr. Gebisa Ejeta,
professor of agronomy at Purdue University, West Lafayette,
Indiana.
[Pause.]
Senator Lugar. Gentlemen, we welcome you to the hearing and
appreciate, very much, your participation. I'll ask you to
testify in the order you were introduced; first of all, Mr.
Price, and then Dr. Ejeta.
And I would ask, as Chairman Kerry suggested at the
beginning, that, if possible, you summarize your remarks in 5
minutes, more or less, and your full statements will be made a
part of the record. You need not ask for permission; it will
occur.
I call upon you now, Mr. Price, for your testimony.
STATEMENT OF EDWIN PRICE, ASSOCIATE VICE CHANCELLOR AND
DIRECTOR, THE NORMAN BORLAUG INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL
AGRICULTURE, COLLEGE STATION, TX
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It's a wonderful opportunity to meet with you to talk about
revitalizing U.S. effort to improve food and agriculture
production worldwide. You're a colleague of Dr. Borlaug;
tomorrow, he turns 95 years old----
Senator Lugar. Right
Mr. Price. [continuing]. On March 25. By his standards, I
am at mid-career now, and I look forward to sharing with you
what I've learned so far.
Dr. Borlaug, incidentally, has prepared a statement for
this hearing, and I hope that that might be used, as well; if
necessary, appended to mine but----
Senator Lugar. It will be----
Mr. Price. [continuing]. In your judgment.
Senator Lugar. [continuing]. Made a part of the record. And
let us just say, the committee wishes Dr. Borlaug a very happy
birthday. We have asked for his testimony many times in the
past, and he has given us remarkable testimony. And his whole
life is remarkable. But, thank you so much for mentioning the
birthday, and for the testimony.
Mr. Price. Great, thank you.
In my written testimony, I will cover--I cover the
chronology and structure of U.S. universities' assistance in
Iraq, in agriculture, and I will--and I have some observations
from that. Then I also cover some common lessons from Iraq and
Afghanistan. And then we talk about, more broadly, agricultural
development, worldwide, and remark on one of the topics that's
been raised today, the relationship between conflict and
development, with some observations from that, as well. I won't
be able to cover all of that in this time, but I refer that
testimony to you.
Since December 2003, university colleagues and I have been
involved with the U.S. Agency for International Development,
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Department of
Defense to rebuild Iraqi agriculture. There was very early
advancement, beginning in 2004. We were able to work with over
250 farms across 11 provinces in Iraq and put out cropping
pattern trials and new technologies. Unfortunately, by 2005
insecurity made it no longer possible for us to visit those
farms, and, in many cases, the scientists with which we--which
whom we were working at the University of Mosul and the
University of Baghdad had to leave the country or were not able
to visit the fields.
Nevertheless, over that period of time, in 3 years, working
with USAID, we were able to identify a large number of improved
practices, including improved wheat varieties, improved potato
varieties, mixtures of crops, vetch and wheat, vetch and barley
for feed production, and other aspects of agriculture. But, we
were limited by the lack of irrigation. There was no energy for
the pumps, there was no water in the canals, but, even worse,
there was no capacity to get technology to farmers because of
the lack of extension services active and well informed and
trained in Iraq.
Working with USDA, then, five U.S. universities, working
with six Iraqi universities, began to train Iraqi extension
workers outside the country. We trained them in Lebanon, in
Syria, and in Egypt and Jordan. And those extension workers
went back into Iraq with funding for developing projects, and
were quite successful in many areas, especially in Kurdistan.
But still, the U.S. commanders, military commanders, were not
seeing progress on the ground; it was still problematic, very
problematic, in much of Iraq.
So, in February 2007, a team of seven university people
joined with the task force--the Department of Defense Task
Force for Business Stabilization Operations, to assess the--
from the vantage point of the forward operating bases around
Iraq, what was the situation in agriculture. I happened to
arrive at Warhorse--FOB Warhorse in Diyala, along with the
surge of the troops, the first surged troops, in 2007, and,
unfortunately, departed on the same helicopters that took away
the first heroes of that action.
We were able to see, from the ground, though, that there
were several--our teams spread out to many forward operating
bases all over Iraq, and the kinds of things that we observed
were the following:
We worked closely with the Provincial Reconstruction Teams
and with the civil affairs units of the military. We found
that--they themselves stated there were three things that
limited their effectiveness. One was that they didn't have the
breadth and depth of science that is required to really find
the solutions to the problems that they were facing with
farmers. They could often see what the problem was, they could,
maybe, half solve it or two-thirds solve it, but always there
was evidence of not being able to quite get to the result.
The third--the second problem was that the--they didn't
have much contact with the farmers. They were very lucky, even
today in the PRTs, to be able to spend 2 or 3 hours a week in
contact with farmers, because of--at least until recently, the
security situation, the ability to have protection as one
visits the fields.
Then, the third thing that was a problem was that there
were no Iraqi plans for agricultural development, from the--
from the Baghdad level to the provincial level to the community
level. There were simply no plans.
The generals in Iraq, the military generals, asked for
agricultural specialists to serve directly under the commands
so that they could have direct access to information
technology. So, June 2008, working with the Task Force for
Business Stabilization Operations, we fielded 14 broad
agriculturalists working directly under the commands in the
southern part--or central to southern part of Iraq. We spent
about 65 percent of our days in the field. We formed 4H Clubs,
introduced drip irrigation, introduced curriculum at
universities, and livestock management. This was a very unique
relationship, and it was a very successful relationship.
I wish to quickly just indicate some of the things that we
learned.
We need to--much more study on the relationship between
development and conflict. We need to understand, How can
communities prevent conflict, or how can communities survive
conflict, and what are the best paths for emerging from
conflict? We found that technological information was severely
limiting, that there were poor genetics in animals and plants.
The--also, because of the years of governmental control, that
there was very little knowledge on farms of how to manage their
inputs. Also, our--we found that there were--one of the most
debilitating aspects was the failure of our own agencies to
work together to solve problems. Earlier, it was alluded to the
fact that there was lack of cooperation. Particularly in Iraq
and Afghanistan, it emerges even to the point of, sometimes,
hostility and competition between the agencies.
I wish to mention two key problems, then, that I find
common between Iraq and Afghanistan, and conclude there. One of
them is that--I've not heard it mentioned today, but the
frustration of youth in the rural agricultural sector is one of
the driving features of terror and conflict in these countries.
We find it in Africa, in Latin America, in Afghanistan and
Iraq. We need more. The international development agencies, the
CJIR, even university extension programs fail to focus on
youth. We've worked with youth in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we
know that much, much more can be done there.
The second major issue that we face is lack of secure
access to land rights. Farmers in Afghanistan and Iraq are--
farm their land under a succession of laws, rules, and
regulations under which they don't know, from one year to the
next, if they have access to land. Under these conditions, it's
not possible for farmers to invest in irrigation or invest,
more importantly, in drainage, such that salinity has become a
very severe problem.
There's a wide range of other issues I would enjoy talking
with you about, but we really--strongly urge that, in the
future effort, that we have programs that look at youth,
programs that are good in developing technology extension to
the farms in the region, and that we find ways to work
effectively together among our agencies.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Price follows:]
Prepared Statement of Edwin C. Price, Associate Vice Chancellor and
Director, Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture,
College Station, TX
Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to appear before your committee. Thank
you for the opportunity to comment on the need to revitalize the U.S.
effort to improve agriculture and food production worldwide. Dr.
Borlaug celebrates his 95th birthday tomorrow, March 25. By his
standard I am at mid-career, and look forward to sharing what I have
learned so far. Dr. Borlaug incidentally has submitted a statement to
this committee and I hope that it can be incorporated into the record
of this hearing.
I will first describe the chronology and structure of U.S.
universities engagement in Iraq, then present some key findings about
agricultural development in Iraq. Then I will discuss some common
problems in Afghanistan, then last I turn to a broader discussion of
development in conflict and post-conflict regimes. I close with a few
general observations.
Since December 2003, university colleagues and I have been engaged
with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, and the U.S. Department of Defense, in helping Iraqis
to rebuild their agricultural sector. There was early advancement in
2004 with new crop varieties and management practices demonstrated in
11 provinces across Iraq, involving over 250 farmers. Then in 2005
security deteriorated sharply and we lost ground. Mosul and Baghdad
University scientists with whom we cooperated could not go to their
farms, and many of our test plots on farmer's fields were abandoned.
Key Iraqi scientists were threatened and left the country. Nevertheless
we eked out data from rainfed and irrigated farmers for 3 years.
In controlled trials in secure areas we were able to show excellent
results for improved practices with salt tolerant wheat, improved
potato varieties, tomatoes under plastic, improved wheat varieties,
barley/vetch mixtures for animal feed, and rice-wheat crop rotations.
But we had little impact on farmers because of lack of water in the
irrigation systems, and lack of energy for pumps, and most of all--our
inability to get improved technology to farmers because of the security
situation and lack of trained extension agents.
Working with USDA, six Iraqi universities, five U.S. universities,
and the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture we began training Iraqi extension
workers outside Iraq. We trained them in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and
Jordan, and they have gone back into Iraq with small amounts of project
funds. These have been particularly successful in Kurdistan. But to our
U.S. military commanders on the ground, little progress was visible. In
February 2007, seven colleagues and I accompanied the members of the
DOD Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) to Iraq to
see the situation from the vantage point of the forward operating
bases. I arrived in Forward Operating Base Warhorse in Diyala with the
first troops of the surge, and I departed on the helicopters with three
of the early heros of that action. I honor them today.
That February we visited FOBs and Provincial Reconstruction Teams
all over Iraq. We were deeply impressed by the effort, dedication, and
skills of the PRT civilians and the military civil affairs units
operating at the FOBs. They were having an impact but they also told of
several problems that limited their effectiveness. (1) There was never
a sufficient breadth and depth of agricultural science capacity to
fully respond to the agricultural problems and opportunities in any
locality. (2) Contact was so limited by development workers with Iraqi
farmers, leaders and agribusinesses that little could be accomplished
in the short and rare visits. (3) Finally, there were no Iraqi plans
for agricultural development, at any level--from Baghdad, to the
province, to the communities. Assistance projects though valiant, did
not build on one another, lacked technical precision and were often
incomplete.
Generals in the Central, North and Western Iraq regions requested
agricultural specialists to serve directly under their commands. In
June 2008 a multidisciplinary team of 14 university agriculturalists
were deployed by the TFBSO to the command of General Oates in MND-C,
and in November 2008 teams were deployed to MNF-West and MND-North. Our
Central team, called Team Borlaug, worked in 8 provinces over 6 months,
operating out of about a dozen bases. We spent about 65 percent of our
days in the field, and logged over 7,000 hours of contact time with
Iraqis. We formed 4-H clubs. We prepared agricultural development plans
and recommendations at the local and provincial levels that Iraqis
claim as their own. We put in drip irrigation demonstrations, improved
curriculum at universities, helped develop the Central Euphrates
Central Market, and trained hundreds of Iraqis in poultry production,
livestock management, crop disease management, tillage, machinery and
other areas.
This effort of agriculturalists working with soldiers in the field
on a daily basis has been unique in Iraq and highly rewarding to the
participants. It is also complementary with the work of the USAID Inma
project, and the USDA agricultural extension projects. Our same
universities have staff on all these projects, and we stay in
communication. However what is more important are our growing Iraqi
partnerships. The most important product of our work is the empowerment
that it has given to Iraqis, who, in their own words, were hiding out
before we came and showed interest in their farms, their animals, and
their homes and families. The PRTs also gained from the broader
scientific expertise brought by the teams, helping to validate and
improve their plans.
Here are some of our observations from the field:
(1) We need to study and better understand the role of development
before, during, and after conflict. Development workers can and should
be engaged with communities throughout these times, and their efforts
will be fruitful. But the process of development in these circumstances
are not well understood and requires the effort of a range of
agriculturalists, engineers, psychologists, political scientists,
economists, and others.
(2) Technological information and infrastructure, especially plant
and animal genetics, and disease diagnostics are severely lacking.
Plant and animal genetics are very badly degraded and almost nothing
yields to its reasonable potential with the resources available.
(3) Years of government control of on-farm agricultural affairs
have left farmers with little knowledge of the management alternatives
that would improve their production.
(4) For the past 6 years, our efforts have had short-time horizons.
We could have done much more to help reestablish the animal feed
industry, producing vegetable oil for human consumption and protein
meals for animals, if we had adopted longer planning horizons. The
agricultural value chains are broken and we are not taking the time to
help repair all the critical links, and therefore isolated efforts
fail.
(5) Our soldiers including civil affairs units are the first
responders to conflict and they are playing highly useful roles in
moving communities out of conflict. They need better training and
support for the early roles that they play in assisting communities to
survive and recover from conflict.
(6) One of the most debilitating features of U.S. development
assistance in situations of conflict is the inability of our agencies
to work cooperatively. In 2006 the then-Minister of Agriculture of Iraq
stated with great concern that her greatest challenge was that U.S.
agencies seeking to assist her ministry spoke with many conflicting
voices.
Many of these problems that I mention are also common in other
fragile nations, but I particularly want to draw attention to two
common problems, or areas of opportunity in the agriculture of both
Iraq and Afghanistan: Land tenure and youth programs.
Secure access to land is the underlying problem that hinders all
progress in agriculture in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq land access is
governed by an overlay of rights from the Ottoman Empire, the
subsequent kingdom, the revolutionary government of Karim Kasem, and
the many interventions by Saddam Hussein. Iraqi farmland is becoming
saline because farmers will not make long-term investments to combat
salinity without securing long-term rights to land use. It doesn't pay
them to build the land, when they cannot be sure of farming it
themselves later.
In Afghanistan our university team is working with nomadic Kuchi
herders, who provide about two-thirds of the lamb and goat meat in
Afghan markets. Traditionally they grazed their animals under long-term
agreements with farmers, but over the past 30 years these patterns of
grazing rights were disrupted by warfare, land abandonment, and
assertions of land rights by new parties. Using advanced systems of
monitoring range quality we are able to help the Kuchi herders improve
production while protecting the range.
But the underlying problem is weak institutions for land
administration in Afghanistan and Iraq. Massive effort needs to be
undertaken to adjudicate, document, and administer land use in these
nations. Agricultural progress will be continually hampered until this
problem is solved.
The second common issue is education, training, and nurturing of
leadership and enterprise among Iraqi and Afghan youth. Burned
indelibly in my mind is the image of a few young Afghan men trying to
get an education at an agricultural high school in Jalabad in December
2002, with no books, no paper, no desks, no pencils, little food and
warmth, but with a few bedraggled but smart and dedicated teachers.
Also the images of village youth in Wasit, Iraq, and the Bedouin Camps
in Najaf, their looks of desperation while their families struggled for
food, tells me clearly where terrorists come from. It so happens that
in both locations we met with their handiwork.
Youth development thorough programs such as 4-H and FFA receive
little or no attention by international development programs, national
plans and programs, even U.S. university extension programs in
developing countries or by the system of international agricultural
research centers, the CGIAR. It is urgent that we work constructively
with youth in developing countries to bring them greater hope for their
future.
Our programs to help restore field crop production in Iraq have
been inconsistent. We started out well with USAID programs in wheat and
barley, but did not stay with the task of field crop improvement. In
Afghanistan the situation is worse. Much of the land for field crop
production has been taken over by opium poppy production. Our approach
has been to replace opium with high-valued crops, which seems to make
common sense. However in recent years, northern Burma opium farmers
switched to corn production when they found high-yielding varieties and
improved production practices. Opium farmers are often little more than
labors on their own farms. Their families cannot eat opium and they
cannot feed it to their animals. They cannot store it and sell it when
and as they wish to a choice of buyers. Northern Burma farmers have
switched from opium when they found steady sufficient incomes from
field crop production. In Afghanistan as well, a more robust program of
farming alternatives need to be supported including not only high-
valued crops, but also need crops of cereal grains and oilseeds.
Finally I wish to turn more broadly to the issue of development and
conflict. In his book ``The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries
are Failing and What Can Be done About It,'' Paul Collier observes that
``73 percent of people in societies of the bottom billion have recently
been through a civil war or are still in one.'' Poverty, hunger, and
conflict are so closely interwoven that development effort among the
food insecure must inevitably be undertaken among the politically
insecure. Regrettably it is clear that civilian aid workers must
increasingly face the dangers of conflict in developing countries.
Development efforts in fragile nations in the Middle East, Asia,
Latin America, and Africa are challenged by many questions. What is the
economic cost of insecurity? What science, governance, and economic
policies are needed to bring about development in the presence of
insecurity? When does conflict cause poverty; and when does poverty
cause conflict? How have fragile nations avoided conflict? What systems
of governance or resources and technologies sustain communities during
conflict? Can the process of recovery begin before or during
destruction? Must agricultural workers join soldiers in the
battlespace? Can development be achieved under conditions of kinetic
conflict?
With the support of USAID, colleagues at Texas A&M and Michigan
State Universities have spent 8 years in the post-conflict environment
of Rwanda and made enormous progress working with the widows and
orphans of genocide. Women's cooperatives now market premium coffee
brands from trees that they had started uprooting to throw away when we
arrived. The National University of Rwanda at Butare has been our
partner throughout the process. We trained their faculty, improved
curriculum, and facilitated their research and extension to African
coffee farmers. One of the students trained for the Ph.D. in the U.S.,
is now the president of the Rwanda coffee cooperatives. The
transformation of the coffee-growing communities is astounding, and it
came through the cooperation of U.S. and Rwandan Universities.
But also during this period I worked with the West Africa Rice
Development Association at its three recent homes in Ivory Coast, Mali,
and Benin. In the Ivory Coast a USAID worker and I had the experience
of becoming isolated in remote areas during an attempted coup. Then,
and during the following 2 years I had several opportunities to meet
the Force Nouvelle leaders and their men. The leaders were charismatic,
and their men were the youth of West Africa where they had lost hope in
their future. I feel deeply sympathetic for those forces and their
communities, and wish that we had in place Ivory Coast, Mali, Benin,
Senegal, Nigeria, and the other nations of Africa the kinds of
university program that were possible in Rwanda.
In closing, I summarize:
(1) We need to study and better understand the role of development
before, during, and after conflict. Development workers can and should
be engaged with communities throughout these times, and their efforts
will be fruitful.
(2) Technological information and infrastructure, especially plant
and animal genetics and diagnostics are severely lacking, but in many
regions secure access to land is the underlying problem that hinders
progress in agriculture.
(3) Finally, in Africa as in poor communities of South and Central
Asia, Middle East, Latin America, and other world regions, it is the
youth without a future who are among our most regrettable losses and
the greatest threat to peace.
Colleagues and I at the land grant universities of the U.S. are
ready and eager to engage with the Federal Government in new ways to
combat hunger, poverty, and conflict throughout the world. Thanks for
inviting me to speak with your committee today.
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
______
ATTACHMENT
Notes of some Iraq accomplishments, recognized at the end of the
deployment of Team Borlaug of the DOD/TFBSO in MND-C, are appended
below.
All accomplishments by Team Borlaug were built upon the progress
and good will that has been established by our military men and women
who have been on the ground in Iraq for the last 5 years. While we were
here, we could have done nothing without their daily support, guidance,
and protection.
Here are some of the things they helped us to accomplish:
Iraqi voices. We conducted eight provincial agricultural
assessments reflecting the collective voice of agriculture in the
provinces--with participation from sheikhs, Bedouin shepherds,
governors, and subsistence farmers. Many Iraqis considered our views
and recommendations as their own, and they felt newly empowered to
assert leadership for their own affairs.
Strengthened partners. We learned from and contributed to the
ongoing missions of civil affairs units of the military, PRTs, and the
Iraqi Government for recovery and development of the agriculture
sector. Our cooperation helped to strengthen and confirm the missions
of our valued partners to assisting Iraqi communities.
Problem solutions. We gave farmers immediate advice on problems
with animal diseases, insect pests, feed rations, tillage practices,
crop varieties, irrigation and drainage practices, and many other
problems and improvements. We also gave ideas to agribusinesses and
policymakers on current problems and opportunities for innovation in
the Iraqi agricultural sector.
Command response. We prepared special analyses for the command on
poultry production, seed storage, agricultural input subsidies,
improved wheat planting, rebuilding the oilseed value chain, tourism
development, and other special reports.
Project implementation. We helped or led implementation of projects
on drip irrigation, management of the Central Euphrates Farmers Market,
improvement of fish brood stock, formation of agricultural youth clubs,
and improvement of university teaching materials.
Strategic plans. We provided plans for implementation within the
MND-C command for use by regional and provincial leaders. Each
assessment is a communication tool and framework for discussion that
includes detailed observations, promising strategies, recommendations
and priorities for Iraq agricultural development among complementary
U.S. agencies.
Communication and cooperation. We fostered communication and
cooperation among Iraqi agencies, including the governors, provincial
councils, provincial DGs, farmers' associations and local farmers and
the PRTs and CA teams. This helped improve relationships between Iraqis
and Americans at provincial, community, family and personal levels.
Vision, trust, and hope. We helped the Government of Iraq,
provincial councils, community leaders, PRTs and ePRTs, and U.S.
agencies articulate their vision for the future of Iraq. We encouraged
rural Iraqis to place trust and hope in their leaders, in a new
agricultural economy, and in a new way of life through education,
training, and entrepreneurship.
While saying all this, we see how very far rural Iraqi communities
have yet to go before they can fully realize the benefits of freedom.
The job has just begun.
Senator Lugar. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Price, for
your testimony; likewise, for your own participation in Iraq.
This is really the most graphic testimony I've heard about
developments going on in Iraq. And we've touched upon that a
little bit, earlier today, talking about Afghanistan and
Pakistan. But, Iraq and that experience is certainly a very
important part of our thinking.
Dr. Ejeta, would you please proceed.
STATEMENT OF GEBISA EJETA, PROFESSOR OF AGRONOMY, PURDUE
UNIVERSITY, WEST LAFAYETTE, IN
Dr. Ejeta. Senator Lugar, members of the committee, I'm
very grateful for the opportunity to appear before you today
and submit this testimony.
I'm professor of plant genetics and breeding at Purdue
University; however, my true credentials to speak on the topic
of global hunger arise from the life I lived as a child in
Ethiopia and the work that I have done in international
agricultural development.
Like most Africans, I was born of illiterate parents with
little means, and raised in a small village with no schools in
west-central Ethiopia. Nothing in my childhood would have
suggested that I would be here today; and yet, by the grace of
God, I am invited to sit here today before this distinguished
committee in this hallowed institution of this great nation to
provide this testimony as a notable scientist with some repute.
This is a very long journey from that village in central
Ethiopia that I'm sorry to report also has not changed much
since my childhood.
In the written record, I speak about how other visionary
leaders who once sat in similar seats as members of this
committee, some 60 years ago, envisioned the building of
institutions of higher learning in developing countries as a
key foundation for global development and extended President
Truman's Marshall Plan to developing countries, and gave poor
kids, like myself, a fighting chance.
In Ethiopia, I attended first an agricultural vocational
school and then a college of agriculture, both of which were
established by Oklahoma State University under the old Point
Four Program. And, as luck will have it, I attended graduate
school at Purdue University, again with support from the U.S.
Agency for International Development.
My professional career started 30 years ago exactly, this
month, when, with a fresh Ph.D. from Purdue University, I
joined one of the international research centers headquartered
in India. I was stationed in the Sudan, a country many consider
one of the more difficult places in the world to live and work.
My time there was very productive and memorable, however. In my
5 years there, I developed the first commercial sorghum hybrid
in Africa; that high-yielding, drought-tolerant sorghum hybrid
is today grown on 1 million acres in Sudan annually.
For the last 30 years, 5 years in Sudan and 25 years at
Purdue University, I have been conducting international
development work in crop improvement, and, through this
process, again, with support mainly from the Federal Government
of the United States, I have trained a large number of graduate
students, both U.S. citizens and Africans, and I have also
conducted more crop improvement research that have benefited
the poor in Africa.
As a beneficiary of the technical assistance program, in
turn, I am devoting my life to improving the well-being of poor
people, especially those that I know best, rural Africans.
Mr. Chairman, as you gather from the presentation of the
distinguished panel that just testified and the excellent
document prepared by the Chicago Council, hunger and poverty
have been relentless. However, I believe eradicating hunger, as
you had indicated, yourself, is within our reach.
In my opinion, to improve the lot of the rural poor, it is
essential that the following three nuggets are addressed:
One, it's very essential that science is given a chance,
science-based improvement in technology is affirmed.
Second, for appropriate science-based changes to be
generated and delivered, institutional and human capacities
must be strengthened. I'm concerned that, of all the problems
that I see, the decline in resource commitment to capacity-
building may derail all the gains that we have had in the past.
Investment in public institutions that build scientific
capacity in research, education, and technology transfer
require greater reinforcement today, more than ever. Private
entrepreneurship and institutions that create incentives for
commercialization, support markets, finances, risk management,
and infrastructure that facilitate commerce need to be greatly
encouraged.
Third, supportive public policies are a must. Empowerment
of local institutions and local cadres is an indispensable
ingredient to making sustainable change. Without the needed
incentive, national policies as a catalyst, and the sustained
resource commitment that should follow, the likelihood of
permanent positive change is very small. I'm convinced that a
more effective partnership can be designed between the U.S.
Government, on one hand, and our institutions of higher
learning and research, on the other, in dispensing these
interventions.
Let me hasten to add, Mr. Chairman, that I'm encouraged by
the confluence of ideas and vision in several of the
initiatives that are currently under discussion at the national
level.
First, the excellent document prepared by the Chicago
Council for Global Affairs articulates the overall need so
clearly and identifies key institutions worthy of support.
Second, the back-to-the-basics approach articulated by the
Global Food Security Act that you and Senator Casey have
sponsored is very refreshing to me, and is complemented well by
the Chicago document.
Third, the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty continues
to promote research-based advocacy for agricultural development
as described in a recent Roadmap draft document prepared by an
alliance of NGOs.
Fourth, the CGIAR Science Council's new Mobilizing Science
and Linkage Initiative that I'm helping lead is an effort to
better link scientists, international agricultural research
centers with scientists in the developed and developing
countries to create better synergy and complementation.
I am further encouraged by the emergence of new
organizations. I recently spent a year in Nairobi, Kenya,
assisting the Rockefeller and Gates Foundation design a new
joint initiative called the Alliance for Green Revolution in
Africa. It is my perception, and that of many Africans, that
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is viewed as the game-
changer or the difference-maker, primarily because their
involvement is coming at a time when external investments from
public governments of the developed world in agricultural
education, research, and development have fallen. Even with the
great generosity of the Rockefeller, Gates, and Buffett
families, however, the need around the world is so large that
it will only be solved by marshaling internal and external
public resources, as well.
This is also an opportune time, from the point of view of
developing countries. For the first time in my life and my
career, I'm beginning to see a more focused sense of purpose
and commitment among African leaders, particularly with respect
to visionary investments in higher education, agriculture,
development institutions and infrastructure. However, the
current propitious momentum will be lost without effective
global leadership for international development. That's why,
Senator Lugar, that I applaud the vision and leadership of the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations considering your act in
today's discussion around the Chicago Initiative on the Global
Agricultural Development. Your work is crucially important to
reinvigorating the position of the U.S. Government in support
of science-based development in developing countries.
Let me conclude my comments with these light words about
the need and power of policy intervention. I liken agricultural
development programs with diet and weight-loss programs. Some
weight-loss programs are gimmicks, some are real. Most have
something in them that works. Some produce results right away,
while others need time to be effective. Regardless of which
weight-loss program is chosen, however, the only way
sustainable life-transforming change can be achieved is if the
person commits to them and uses the newly learned discipline to
stay the course and continue to eat right, exercise, and clear
the mind.
The same principle is true of introducing new agricultural
technologies to developing countries. We can produce some
positive results with most R&D programs, where infusion of
money and effort demonstrate the value of our interventions.
But, only if local people, local institutions, and local
governments are encouraged, engaged, and empowered, and remain
vigilant until the change is ingrained can that to which we all
aspire be achieved.
Thank you for the opportunity to share these thoughts.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ejeta follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gebisa Ejeta, Distinguished Professor
of Agronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I would like to extend
my appreciation for the opportunity to appear before you today to
submit this testimony on this U.S. Senate hearing of ``Alleviating
Global Hunger: Challenges and Opportunities for U.S. Leadership.''
With your permission, Mr. Chairman, let me begin with a personal
introduction of myself. I am Professor of Plant Genetics and Breeding
at Purdue University, but my true credentials to speak on the topic of
global hunger arise from the life I lived as a child and the work I
have done in the world of international development.
I was born of illiterate parents with little means and raised in a
small village with no schools in west-central Ethiopia. An only child,
I was nurtured with lots of love, but on a diet less than adequate even
for body maintenance, let alone for growth and intellectual
development. All nutritional and developmental indicators might have
suggested that I was destined not for my current physical stature or
the modest professional success I've attained, but for failure and
perhaps for disaster. And yet by the Grace of God, in what feels like a
destiny nothing less than providential, I am invited to sit here today
before this distinguished committee, in this hallowed institution of
this great Nation, to provide this testimony as a notable scientist
with some distinction and repute. This is a very long journey from that
village in west-central Ethiopia that I am sorry to report has not
changed much since the days of my childhood.
I was rescued by a godsend from the United States of America--the
work of other visionary leaders who once sat in similar seats, as
members of this committee and envisioned the building of institutions
of higher learning in developing countries as a key foundation for
global development. Upon completing my elementary education in a
township 20 kilometers away from my village, I was selected to attend
Jimma Agricultural & Technical School which was established by Oklahoma
State University under the old Point Four Program. I then entered
Alemaya College of Agriculture, another Oklahoma State University and
Point Four establishment in Ethiopia. I graduated in 1973 with a degree
in Plant Science, with Great Distinction and at the top of my class.
After graduation, I was retained by Alemaya College to serve as a
junior faculty member and was recommended to seek graduate education
overseas. A chance meeting in Ethiopia with my mentor, the late Prof.
John Axtell, led to my recruitment to Purdue University in 1974, where
I joined yet another U.S. Government funded project on nutritional
quality improvement of sorghum, and completed a Ph.D. program in 1978.
My professional career began exactly 30 years ago this month, when
with a newly minted Ph.D. from Purdue University, I joined the
International Crop Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics
(ICRISAT) in India. I was stationed in the Sudan, a country many
consider one of the more difficult places in the world to live and
work. It was an enjoyable and meaningful experience for me, however. In
my 5 years there, I developed the first commercial sorghum hybrid in
Africa and catalyzed the establishment of a private seed industry to
support this breakthrough. Drought tolerant and high yielding, the
sorghum, hybrid Hageen-Dura 1, is now cultivated in Sudan on over 1
million acres annually. In 1986, Secretary of State George Schultz, in
addressing a special meeting of the United Nations in 1986, identified
this work as a significant development and cited it as a good
illustration of the promise of science-based development in Africa.
For the last 30 years, including 25 years since I joined the
faculty of Purdue University, I have conducted an international
graduate education and research program in crop improvement at Purdue
University funded primarily by the U.S. Agency for International
Development. I am, therefore, a product of the international
development and technical assistance program. That experience has given
me great motivation and inspiration for devoting my life to serving
international agriculture. As an educator and scientist, I am now in
turn advancing the well-being of poor people through science,
especially those I know best, rural Africans.
THE RELENTLESS PROBLEMS OF THE POOR IN AFRICA
Mr. Chairman, hunger continues to prevail across Africa and in many
developing nations. Hundreds of millions of people are struggling to
survive and build a better future for their families--a challenge that
seems to get steeper and more difficult each decade. As you gathered
from the presentations of the distinguished panel that just testified
and the excellent documents prepared by the Chicago Council on Global
Affairs, hunger and poverty have been relentless. Rural dwellers, who
are the food producers, have been hurt more, but those who fled the
rural hardships and became the urban poor have not fared any better.
Several constraints limit agricultural productivity and the use of
better management of natural resources in much of the tropics. Growing
pressure from increasing population and associated energy and water
demands continue to worsen problems of resource limitations. As more
recent food-price crises have shown, these problems have global
ramifications. The inherent biophysical limitations brought about by
degraded natural resources are further aggravated by changing weather
patterns. The variety of pests and diseases prevalent in the tropics
are likely to be even more severe and troublesome with advanding
climatic change.
THE STATE OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION AND RESEARCH IN AFRICA
Contrary to a widely held view, advances have been made in
agricultural education and research in Africa.\1\ There have been a
number of small success stories, though not well publicized. The United
States Government led early efforts in the development of many of the
newly emerging poor nations in the 1950s where it extended a version of
the European Marshall Plan program to the new independent nations. At
the time of the flurry of independence of the African nations in the
early 1960s, not many Africans had graduate degrees in agriculture and
little functional agricultural education and research infrastructure
existed. The United States Government led early efforts in human
capacity-building with its Point Four program that set out a vision to
lay the institutional foundation for agricultural development efforts
in these nations. Our land-grant colleges and universities educated a
large number of agricultural scientists from these developing
countries. A cadre of U.S. citizens with interest in international
engagement were also trained and dispatched for service through a
variety of organizational arrangements. U.S. universities were
mobilized in long-term institutional strengthening programs of the
newly emerging developing-country centers of learning in many of these
emerging nations. These efforts generated benefits for both the U.S.
and the developing nations including those in Africa. The United States
saw a growing number of scientists and professionals with knowledge and
experience in international agricultural development. The agricultural
research ``culture at many national research institutions improved as a
result of the efforts of these U.S. scientists and their institutions.
Continued assistance from the U.S. and other developed nations helped
strengthen the research infrastructure in Africa through the 1980s
until support for such long-term human and institutional capacity-
building declined significantly in the last 20 years.
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\1\ Holmes, H. 2005. ``Spurts in Production--Africa's Limping Green
Revolution.'' In Djurfeldt, G., Holmen, H., Jirstrom, M., and Larson,
R. (eds). The African Food Crisis. Lessons from the Asian Green
Revolution. CA BI, UK and USA.
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Within Africa, increased communication and networking among African
agricultural research services led to more collaboration and exchange
of knowledge and germplasm--key ingredients in technology development
and deployment.
Further funding from the U.S. and European governments, other
international organizations, and private foundations led to the
establishment of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR). Increased linkages were developed between these
centers and the National Agricultural Research Services (NARS) in
Africa, as well as U.S. and European universities. Perhaps most
importantly, there emerged a growing recognition of agricultural
research as a vehicle of change for national development as a result of
these engagements and the resultant interactions among these
organizations.
Unfortunately, the level of support for these long-term
multigenerational changes has declined over the last two decades,
stalling the progress of our early efforts.\2\ A drop in external
funding and political neglect of agriculture by national policymakers
in developing countries have resulted in an increasing decline in the
human capital base. Reduced funding for agriculture and agricultural
research has eroded the capability of U.S. institutions to educate and
conduct research in vital areas, particularly in the applied sciences
including plant and animal breeding, genetics, crop physiology, and
plant pathology.
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\2\ Masters, W.A. 2008. ``Beyond the Food Crisis: Trade, Aid and
Innovation in African Agriculture.'' African Technology Development
Forum 5(1): 3-15.
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In my view, this general decline in the human capital base and the
shrinking opportunities to replenish it through higher education is the
most serious threat to the gains we have made in developing countries.
Equally concerning is the erosion of U.S. talent in international
development, particularly among the university faculty that are well-
versed in the sciences, and the lack of opportunities to attract the
new generation to careers in science-based development work
internationally.
Other challenges to continued growth in agricultural education and
research in Africa include:
Inadequate internal (local) funding for agricultural
research and education. In this ``Catch 22'' situation,
research does not receive enough support to produce impact; and
because it has not produced impact, national leaders are not
persuaded to commit greater support.
Because of lack of extensive research knowledge and
experience, research at some institutions is not carefully
targeted to technology development. It is often not easy for
professionals who have not been able to benefit from mentoring
with experienced researchers to develop a ``big-picture''
perspective that is essential to catalyze efforts that may
sustain change.
Often, education, research, and extension efforts reside in
different administrative agencies. Government and nongovernment
organizations do not readily cooperate with each other--and in
fact appear to be in competition with each other. In several
situations, the desired synergy between internationally funded
agricultural research centers and locally funded national
research centers has not developed as hoped for, often
resulting in unnecessary and undue competition.
The lack of a firm national strategic framework and agenda.
The over-reliance on external funding tends to create research
goals and program missions that are reactionary rather than
strategic.
Increased funding for support of rural social services, such
as emergency food aid, has also diverted attention from long-
term institutional development efforts. Rural social services
save lives and are important, but they do not increase crop
yields, lead to productivity gains, or raise earning capacity
to reduce poverty. In 2003, for example, U.S. food aid to
Ethiopia totaled $475M, while $354M was spent in total
agriculture development worldwide.\3\
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\3\ Eicher, C. 2003. ``Flashback: Fifty Years of Donor Aid to
African Agriculture.'' Paper presented at the InWEnt, IFPRI, NEPAD, CTA
Conference ``Success in African Agriculture.'' 3 December 2003.
Pretoria, SA.
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africa's dismal record in technology transfer
While Africa has made some progress in agricultural education and
research, its record in technology transfer has been dismal. African
higher education and research infrastructures and institutions have
begun to generate a fair degree of progress and momentum, but the
technology transfer programs have not fared as well. As a result,
products of research, including some that could generate significant
impact; fail to reach the farmer and do not produce badly needed change
in farm practices and family livelihoods. Reasons for this failure
include:
Institutional immaturity. African institutions today are
generally not as strong as Asian institutions were at the
advent of the Asian Green Revolution in the 1960s. While
progress has been made in some countries, we have a long way to
go in the vast number of countries in Africa. Approaches to
technology delivery processes have changed too rapidly over the
years, although they have varied with funding agencies. Because
of these frequent shifts in approach over the last several
decades, many interventions have not generated noticeable
impact. For example, the U.S. Land Grant approach to
agricultural extension, has been an effective approach to
public-supported technology transfer when given a chance.
Extension was part of the early institutional development
programs in many countries. At the time, efforts to build
closer linkages between agricultural research and extension was
not as effective due to the weak human capacity and
institutional, development programs of African nations in those
early days. The land grant approach of technology transfer via
public extension services was replaced by others including the
World Bank's Train & Visit, the Food and Agricultural
Organization's (FAO) Farmer Field Schools; as well as a mix of
approaches by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), with the
latest approaches advocating private-sector-based
agrodealerships or other approaches that may have a public-
private partnership slant to them. None has been sustained long
enough to produce a culture of change in rural farm practices.
Ill-equipped agents of change. There are not many African
national programs that have been able to build a well-trained
cadre of sufficient critical mass with the knowledge of the
sciences and understanding of the agriculture of its
communities. When well-trained experts from abroad are
received, they often do not stay long enough to develop an
understanding of both the local agricultural practices as well
as the biophysical environments to be effective.
Infrastructure limitations. Almost everywhere in Africa, the
infrastructure, facilities, and programs of technology transfer
institutions are usually underfunded and underdeveloped
compared to the institutions of higher education or research in
the same countries. There is no reason to believe that this
happens by design, but it is true almost everywhere.
Unique biophysical problems. That Africa is a large and
diverse continent is often not well understood or acknowledged.
With nearly 800 million people, more than 1,000 ethnic groups,
seven colonial histories, six geographic regions, and a mix of
governance styles, a variety of research results and
educational formats are needed to reach out to a variety of
communities. In poor nations where resources are limited, this
presents a formidable challenge.
Lack of proper incentives for change. Farmers everywhere
respond better to economic incentives and benefits, often
immediate to their needs. In Africa, where private
entrepreneurial plans are not well developed, productivity
gains are limited to meeting household needs; they are unable
to broadly translate to profitability and to generate a needed
demand for new technologies from research.
The rate of new technology adoption in a country is often
directly related to local knowledge, experience, and social
realities in the community. We can learn a great lesson from
the experience of early adoption of hybrid crops in the United
States. Despite the better education and awareness that existed
in this country, compared to many of the developing nations of
the world, it took over 25 years to move the acceptance of
hybrid maize from 0 percent to 95 percent. But once the farm
communities got used to the new technology, and the experience
of hybrid maize was shared and the network of dealerships and
private seed sector were well developed, it took only 5 years
to reach a similar level of adoption of hybrid sorghum when
that technology first appeared in 1956.\4\
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\4\ Maunder, A.B. 1998.`` Why Hybrids?'' In: Axtell et. al. (eds)
Proc. West African Hybrid Sorghum and Pearl Millet Workshop. 28
September-2 October, 1998. Niamey, Niger.
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major paradigm shifts in african agricultural r&d and their impact
African agricultural research and community development programs
have suffered frequent and disrupting changes in approaches and
emphasis. There are several reasons for shifts in paradigms to take
place in a development practice. Paradigms shift to make what are
perceived to be needed adjustments in program approach, or they may be
shifted to better position a program for continued research support.
Regardless of the reason, paradigm shifts often bring with them loss of
momentum, some disillusionment, and result in the never-ending blame
game and one-upmanship that is so prevalent in the international
development world. These shifts can also result in a perceived lack of
local commitment to a project or program. There have been a number of
such changes both in the agricultural research arena and in the
community development efforts in the developing countries, particularly
in Africa.\5\
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\5\ Ejeta, G. 2009. ``African Green Revolution Needn't be a
Mirage.'' Seminar presented at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. 10
March 2009, Seattle, WA.
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Paradigm shifts in research and development have not been the only
disruptions in African development. Added to this are changes brought
about by structural adjustments that force contraction of government
agencies (external influence), and the wave of socialist influence of
nationtalizing plantations and regional research centers, and replacing
research and development enterprises with state farms and communal
systems. In many of these cases, generally shifts in research
approaches tend to be more jolting than those in community development
programs because of the long-term nature of agricultural research and
the time needed to generate research results. The shifts over the years
in paradigms and emphasis have contributed to growth in the ``industry
of science providers''--a long list of providers with a variety of
skills and approaches. There is often no proper division of labor among
groups and organizations, which results in unnecessary duplication of
effort and competition. All of this, of course, has added to the
growing cost of doing business.
the emergence and promise of the bill & melinda gates foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has recently emerged as a
leader in helping fight hunger and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and
Southeast Asia. The foundation is rapidly building its alliances to
work with a variety of other institutions including national programs,
international centers, and universities. Together with the Rockefeller
Foundation, it is a major force behind the creation of the Alliance for
a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)--a growing partnership working
across the African Continent to help millions of small-scale farmers
and their families lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. BMGF has
infused badly needed resources to some sectors, particularly to the
International Agricultural Research Centers (IARCs).
It is my percetion and that of many Africans that the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation is viewed as the ``Game Changer'' or the
``Difference Maker'' primarily because their involvement comes at a
time when total external investments in agricultural education,
research, and development from governments of the developed world have
fallen. Support of programs such as these has given an elevated sense
of hope and vision of leadership to these efforts. However, it is
already made clear that even with the great generosity of the
Rockefeller, Gates, and Buffet families, more internal public resources
need to be mobilized to generate the needed impact, for the need around
the world is so large and the loss of momentum from early efforts needs
greater investment to jump start and reenergize.
The new agricultural development programs of BMGF are designed to
promote capacity-building, generate scientific results that offer
solutions, disseminate research results aggressively, and catalyze the
development and adoption of new agricultural technologies for greater
impact in an integrated value-chain approach. Both the vision and the
resources from the array of comprehensible BMGF programs have been
received with great anticipation and promise.
essentials for science-based agricultural development in africa
There is a need to regroup, take lessons from past efforts, and
focus on those programs and approaches that generate the needed impact
to offer immediate relief and build new momentum in catalyzing science-
based development in an accelerated and renewed sense of purpose and
energy. Based on my 30 years of development experience and my knowledge
of rural life in Africa, I have come to believe that there are three
key essentials needed to bring about sustainable change that could
generate needed results for generating sustained impact in the
agricultural development of developing nations. These three sets of
essentials that must be well orchestrated and addressed in concert are
(1) Technology; (2) Institutional and human capacity; and (3) Public
policy.
1. Science and Technology: It is essential that science be affirmed
as the primary vehicle of change for economic development. The
successes of U.S. agriculture, the Asian Green Revolution, and the few
nuggets of change in Africa are evidence that science-based development
offers not only a way out of hunger and poverty, but also leads to
prosperity. Life altering changes will continue to require scientific
innovations that raise productivity and income. Recent advances made in
the biological sciences offer exciting opportunities for addressing
some of the most intractable agricultural problems prevalent in the
tropics.
2. Institutional and Human Capacity-Building: For appropriate,
science-based changes to be generated and delivered, institutional and
human capacities must be strengthened. I am seriously concerned that
the decline in global resource commitments for capacity-building
threatens to derail all the gains made to date. The acute need for
strengthening institutions and building human capacity in developing
countries cannot be overemphasized. Investments in public institutions
that build scientific capacity in research, education, and technology
transfer need greater reinforcement today more than ever. I may add
that the weakest institutions in most developing countries are in the
private sector. We must encourage private entrepreneurship and
institutions that create incentives for commercialization, support
markets, finances, risk management, and infrastructure that facilitates
commerce. In building both public and private institutional capacity in
developing countries, we must support and advance openness in sharing
of experiences with the outside world so that newly trained individuals
and their institutions receive the necessary mentoring and seasoning as
well as develop a ``can-do'' spirit.
3. Policy Interventions: Supportive policies are critical.
Empowerment of local institutions and local groups is an indispensable
ingredient to making sustainable change. Needed are bold local policies
that encourage generation and adoption of new agricultural technologies
and support new public and private incentives. Without the needed
policy catalyst and sustained resource commitment that should follow,
the likelihood of permanent positive change is very small.
The dream of attaining an African Green Revolution can be
achieved.\6\ The use of new and improved crop cultivars, new management
practices, the education of farm communities to adopt new technologies
that generate impact through increased productivity and profitability
of incomes is within reach for developing nations. However, these
things do not happen without great dedication and incentives, and
enabling policy environments that are badly needed.
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\6\ Hesser, 2006. ``The Man Who Fed the World.'' Nobel Prize
Laureate Norman Borlaug and his battle to end world hunger. Durban
House Publishing Company, Texas.
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Dr. Norman Borlaug, universally acknowledged as the ``father of
Green Revolution'' is a hero to me and very many others. I personally
admire his single-minded devotion to science and agricultural
development and his unending empathy and service for the poor. He has
been a great example for scientific leadership and a life so well
lived. As I reflect on his accomplishments and leadership, however, in
my view the genius of Norm Borlaug was not in his creation of high
yield potential and input responsive dwarf wheat varieties, not even in
his early grasp of the catalytic effect of technology, but to a great
extent in his relentless push to mobilize policy support to encourage
the development of the agro-industry complex, to sustain the
synergistic effects of technology, education, and markets.
science-based development can be achieved and sustained in africa
I have described above the three factors that I consider crucial
for sustainable agricultural development in Africa. Science and
technology need to be given a chance in Africa. We need to develop a
culture of change where, based on learned experience, African farmers
form a mind-set of looking to agricultural innovation centers as
sources of solutions to their agricultural problems. As farmers and
farm communities and key stakeholders begin to assert themselves and
earn some economic power, they may lean on government agencies to
develop and pursue supportive national policies and policy incentives.
With strengthened stakeholders; the rapidly changing paradigm shifts
may be slowed and proactive strategies and development agendas may
emerge generating badly needed momentum in science-based development.
An effective partnership can be designed between the U.S.
Government and our institutions of higher learning and research to
achieve these interventions. The U.S. Land-Grant Colleges of
Agriculture and their partners have a proud legacy of building human
capacity and strengthening institutions of education, research, and
technology transfer. A good foundation was developed in several
developing nations by the early vision and resource commitments of the
U.S. Government beginning in the 1950s to make it happen. It is an
experience that is worth reassessing and replicating at this time.
The U.S. Government has supported the International Agricultural
Research Centers of the Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the Title XII Collaborative Research
Support Programs (CRSPs), both of which work closely with developing
country institutions in agricultural research and development, helping
build human and institutional capacity.
U.S. investments in building human capacity and strengthening
institutions in developing countries have been some of the best
investments that our government has made toward alleviating hunger,
reducing poverty, and safeguarding our natural resources.
It is my assessment that the dividends would be even greater if
these educational, research, and development investments were
orchestrated with parallel governmental efforts to encourage proper
public policies in collaborating nations. Policies that encourage
internal investments in agricultural development and further
strengthening of local institutions and in local people to raise the
level and depth of their national aspirations are badly needed.
However, this is the realm of influence for governments and donor
agencies; we in the academic and science community are ill-equipped to
have much influence beyond ideas to have lasting impact in the field of
policy.
THE OUTLOOK
Let me state, Mr. Chairman, that I am encouraged by several
initiatives that are currently under discussion at the national level:
The excellent document prepared by the Chicago Council for
Global Affairs \7\ articulates the overall need clearly and
identifies key institutions worthy of support.
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\7\ ``Renewing American Leadership in the Fight Against Global
Hunger and Poverty.'' The Chicago Initiative on Global Agricultural
Development. Report issued by an independent leader group (Catherine
Bertini and Dan Glickman, cochairs).
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The back to the basics approach articulated by the Global
Food Security Act of 2009 \8\ introduced by Senator Casey and
Senator Lugar is refreshing and is complemented well by the
Chicago Council document.
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\8\ Introduced to the U.S. Senate as the Global Food Security Act
of 2009 by Robert Casey (Pennsylvania) and Senator Richard Lugar
(Indiana), this bill seeks to assign greater priority to alleviating
hunger and poverty.
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The Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty continues to
promote research-based advocacy for African Agricultural
Development as described in its recent ``Roadmap'' draft
document.
The CGIAR Science Council's new Mobilizing Science and
Linkages initiative, of which I am privileged to be among the
leaders, is an effort to better link scientists in
international agricultural research centers with scientists in
the developed world to create better synergy and
complementarities.
I am further encouraged by new organizations that have come into
international agricultural development with great interest and resource
commitment. I recently spent a year in Nairobi, Kenya, assisting the
Rockefeller and Gates Foundations to design a new joint initiative
called the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
This is also an opportune time from the point of view of developing
countries. For the first time in my life and my career, I am beginning
to see a more focused sense of purpose and commitment among African
leaders, particularly in more deliberate, visionary investments in
higher education, agriculture, development institutions, and
infrastructure.
However, the current propitious momentum will be lost without
effective global leadership for international development.
I, therefore, appland the vision and leadership of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations in considering the Global Food Security
Act of 2009 and today's discussion around the Chicago Initiative on the
Global Agricultural Development. Your work is essential to
reinvigorating the position of the U.S. Government in support of
science-based development in developing countries.
With your permission, Mr. Chairman, let me end my comments with
these light words about the need and power of policy intervention:
I liken agricultural development programs with diet and weight loss
programs. Some weight loss programs are gimmicks, some are real. Most
have something in them that works. Some produce results right away
while others need time to be effective.
Regardless of which weight loss program is chosen, however, the
only way sustainable, life-transforming change can be achieved is if
the person commits to them and uses the newly learned discipline to
stay the course and continue to eat right, exercise, and clear the
mind.
The same principle is true of introducing new agricultural
technologies to developing countries. We can produce some positive
results with most R&D programs, where infusions of money and effort
demonstrate the value of our interventions. But only if we encourage,
engage, and empower local people, local institutions, and local
governments--and remain vigilant until the change is ingrained--can we
bring about that truly transformative change that we all aspire to
achieve.
Thank you for the opportunity to share these thoughts with you.
Senator Lugar. Well, thank you for that testimony, Doctor.
Let me just comment, with the overall testimony of the two
of you. You have demonstrated why it would be important for a
coordinator on agriculture and food to be either a part of the
National Security Council or a voice in the White House as our
President considers the points of national security, someone
around the table who can speak to Iraq, as you have, from your
own life, Dr. Ejeta, about Sudan. These are areas in which we
have considerable foreign policy and security interests,
presently. And yet, on the ground, I would guess that many
persons who may be taking part in those White House discussions
are clearly not aware of the testimony you've presented today,
of facts on the ground of what's occurred.
For instance, Dr. Ejeta, explain how, from the sorghum
hybrid proposition that you were responsible for bringing
about, you could go from where you started to a million acres
of cultivation in Sudan. That is a lot of territory. How many
farmers, roughly, would be involved in farming a million acres,
in Sudan, of this sorghum hybrid?
Dr. Ejeta. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Lugar, I know that you'd clearly understand this as
a farmer. One of the things that we have not done very well in
Africa is giving farmers an opportunity to look to science as
solving their problems. And that culture of looking to research
institutions and technology centers for problem solution is
what we haven't been able to get done in Africa at large. To
effectively address this problem in Sudan, very early in our
program we began to word with farmers and farm communities and
engaging them every step of the way in the technology
development process as scientific interventions were coming
along. Among other things, this provided an opportunity for
farmers to recognize that we were working on hybrids, not open
pollinated cultivars, and that because of that they need to
recognize that new seeds need to be purchased annually. And so,
we instilled from the beginning the need to catalyze the
creation of a private sector establishment to mobilize the seed
production and delivery activities. To answer your question,
more specifically, in Sudan, where we thought originally that
we might reach larger farmers, our hybrids actually received
greater adoption to small farmers that normally would cultivate
maybe, 5 acres, at the most, of sorghum. So, with that
calculation, you're talking about thousands of farmers and farm
families.
Senator Lugar. Yes, hundreds of thousands.
Dr. Ejeta. Yes, Senator.
Senator Lugar. And this is a remarkable phenomenon on the
ground in Sudan now, as we take a look at Sudan, either from
the security standpoint, a humanitarian standpoint, as
testimony comes before our committee, frequently talking about
hundreds of thousands of people huddled in refugee camps. This
is why the juxtaposition of this farming going on, the 5-acre
farms, with something that came literally from your help, is
truly astonishing.
You know, likewise, in Iraq, as you pointed out, Dr. Price,
why, you've tried to work within the bounds of security that
either was there or wasn't there, sort of returned with the
surge group and so forth, saw at least some effects on the
ground, tried to help push some more along. You know, very
frequently, discussions occur in Iraq about development. All
sorts of contractor teams have gone out, hopefully to help with
the water problem or with the power and light problem and so
forth, which are instrumental in agricultural, likewise. But,
I've heard very little testimony with regard to feeding the
people of Iraq, or people in Iraq producing food, as opposed to
humanitarian shipments. And it's interesting--and this is a
problem our committee deals with, as well as the
administration--frequently, these affairs have followed our
military, because they were able, literally, to organize the
agricultural situation. Hypothetically, we could have had the
State Department working on this, other civilian authorities
and USDA. But, the problem of coordination at the top has--this
is a good illustration--been achieved by the Secretary of
Defense, frequently, who has called together the people who
were required, whether they were teachers or lawyers or people
involved in the water problem, or yourself. But, it just gets
back to the need for coordination at the White House level in
what is now an Iraq and national security endeavor, as well as
a humanitarian one, because we're thinking about plans for
withdrawal, about life after the American troops in Iraq. And
the importance of agricultural development now is really
critical.
Now, let me just say one further thing before I ask for
your comment. Mention has been made of the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, and we've had visits with Bill and Melinda
Gates, and I'm excited about their vision with regard to this.
They understand productive agriculture, the need for farmers
markets. A part of their beneficence has been to create, as I
understand, in some areas, 3 years of markets that were
guaranteed to farmers, that started from scratch, wanted to
make sure that, at the end of the trail, there was someplace
that there could be income for their families if they increased
their yields beyond something needed just to feed the family.
And they've obviously worked on the science-based areas. And,
as you both pointed out, they cannot do it all by themselves,
but this has been a very large contribution in the areas in
which they have worked.
Let me just ask, is the work of the Gates Foundation, or,
for that matter, the work you've done in Iraq or the work
you've done in Sudan and elsewhere, Doctor, widely recognized?
How have you been able to make known the kinds of facts that
you've given us today, which are extremely important for people
who are arguing either national security, coordination of
affairs at the White House, including civilian as well as
military people, as well as the humanitarian situation? Do you
have any overall thoughts about that, Dr. Price?
Mr. Price. One of the questions or statements often made to
me is, Why haven't we heard about this work?
Senator Lugar. Yes.
Mr. Price. Every time I give a presentation----
Senator Lugar. That's the one I'm asking.
Mr. Price. [continuing]. That's exactly the response. And
I've puzzled over that, myself.
But, let me say, in the first place, that in Iraq and
Afghanistan, there was anxiety, in the beginning, to protect
the people were in the field.
Senator Lugar. I see.
Mr. Price. And--so that we were actually constrained from
saying very much. I remember one day, one Friday night, a
reporter called and said, ``Couldn't you tell me a little bit
about what's going on in Iraq?'' And so, I gave him a
statement. It came out in the local newspaper the next morning,
on Saturday morning. Within 2 hours, I had a phone call,
saying, you know, ``You really shouldn't be talking to the
press about what's going on. It could result in danger for our
people in the field.'' Of course, they were--it was my--they
were my people----
Senator Lugar. Yes.
Mr. Price. [continuing]. In the field. So, that was one of
the--that's one of the reasons.
But, yeah, the word is beginning to get out, but I can
almost count on one hand the stories that have been released
about the work of the agriculturalists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I can't give a good answer to that. I think that part of it
came out of the security constraints. And then, after that, I'm
not sure that people wanted to hear what's really going on,
that it was really the stories of the dangers, the stories of
the distress. The drama of the distress actually was what the
public was more interested in hearing, perhaps, and it was
harder to tell the story of agriculture. It's beginning to be
told, and I think that, through your effort and many others',
we should make an enormous effort, because most people do not
even realize that Iraqis are farmers. Two-thirds of the
country----
Senator Lugar. Yes.
Mr. Price. [continuing]. Are agriculturalists, and they've
been farming for centuries. So, it's a very important
agricultural country. They say, in fact, that it's an
agricultural country that happens to have oil.
Senator Lugar. Without underlining the obvious, with two-
thirds of the population, in agriculture, Americans who are
involved in agriculture in Iraq are appreciated by the people
that are involved in agriculture. You know, that's sort of a
strange fact, which isn't obvious, but frequently we are--cited
polls that indicate, ``Do you want the Americans to stay?'' or,
``Do you like Americans around?'' or something of this variety,
and very large percentages say, ``No, we don't. They're
intrusive and they have caused trouble for us,'' and all the
rest of this. And we were very resentful; after all, we feel we
displaced the dictator, we are trying to bring about democracy,
trying to do a number of good things; and to be so resented by
the population seems to us to be totally wrong.
On the other hand, what you're pointing out is, there is
clearly an avenue, not just simply to win the hearts and minds
of the Iraqis, but, as a matter of fact, to work on fundamental
situations against poverty, for food that might be helpful in
elevating the standard of living. In other words, people might
say, ``It was really a nice thing to have some of the Americans
around,'' that, ``We've got better crops, better life because
they were here in that fashion.''
And I mention that because frequently we have tried, in a
foreign policy way, to say that, after all, Iraq might be, if
not a shining star, in the firmament, that area, someplace that
conspicuously was better. And this has always become a dubious
point of debate. But, not so with the two-thirds you're talking
about, and this is why I'm hopeful the story might have greater
currency. As you say, security reasons may have impelled that
you not tell the story, but now you can. And we are doing so
today, for anybody's who's listening, and it's an important
story.
Likewise, Dr. Ejeta, in the work that you have been doing
throughout your life, as somebody who came from a country that
had great needs, and, as you pointed out, still has great
needs, may not have moved that far along the metrics of
development, the fact is that, from that experience, and
informed by your own childhood and then what you found in the
rest of the world, you've accomplished great things.
But, get to Sudan again, now, the sight of a million acres
being farmed, maybe 5 acres at a time by, if you do the math,
200,000 farmers--this is a lot of people in Sudan. Now, Sudan's
a big place with issues in Darfur, development challenges, and
conflicting tribes and all. But, even in the midst of this,
there's something going on, here, that offers, it seems to me,
a platform for, not only aid and assistance, but for real
progress, for people to understand how their lives could be
informed and changed.
In addition to that, what other countries do you believe
are there real possibilities, given your research, to bring
about change and further agricultural knowledge?
Dr. Ejeta. Thank you, Senator.
As you clearly indicated, in the bill that you sponsored
and also--as you have articulated very clearly many times in
the past, the power of public institutions in supporting
agricultural development is immense. That's the kind of lasting
testimonial that is going on around the world in many
developing countries today. As a result of the earlier
investments of the U.S. Government in building vital
institutions of learning and the training and educating of
young people, even in places where that support has eroded over
the years, the vestiges of what was left behind, in terms of
institution-building, capacity-building, are paying dividends
even today.
As you indicated about the work in Sudan, this sorghum
hybrid was developed over 20 years ago, and yet even with all
the isolation that the country of Sudan has received from the
rest of the world, the people of Sudan continued to benefit
from that intervention of our early work that was generated
then.
So, when you advance the cause of agriculture through
science, change minds of farmers to adopt new technologies, as
you train and educate young people and build capacity, as you
leave behind institutions of research and extension in these
countries, those are the kinds of sustained changes that we all
want to see. And in my opinion, that is the refreshing part of
the bill that you and Senator Casey are sponsoring. I hope this
bill gets to see the light of the day, because it has the
making of one that would generate significant ramifications in
solving the problems of developing countries down the road.
Senator Lugar. Let me just ask both of you, because you
were constrained by our guideline to try to have a 5-minute
opening summary, more or less, and you've mentioned, of course,
the more complete testimony that's in the written testimony
you've submitted, but if you had a few more minutes, Dr. Price,
what would you like to add that you were not able to articulate
to this broader audience?
Mr. Price. Thank you.
First of all, let me just say that, in response to your
previous comment about our presence seemingly being resented
sometimes, I didn't find that in Iraq. In fact, our
relationships at the community level were extremely warm. There
were tears in the eyes of the leaders when we came. They said,
``You're the first people who have shown interest in our farms,
our families and how we live.''
Senator Lugar. That's an important statement, all by
itself. Yes, indeed.
Mr. Price. Thank you very much.
The areas that I would like to talk about, in addition to--
when we talk about food security, it's very important that we
also think of nonfood agricultural production, as well as
ecosystem services. In order to have food available to
consumers, it's in a marketplace, and that food competes for
land with other crops. And now we're very concerned about how
the--the possibility that biofuel production has competed with
food production.
I believe science has an answer to that. We know, from many
different types of technologies, that it's possible for
technology to produce both oils--vegetable oil for human
consumption and animal feed. Technology can solve some of these
conflicts that we see immediately of some of this competition.
I believe it's important, while going for improving food
production, that we also look at the technologies for the
nonfood production to make sure--and also the ecosystem
services--to make sure that we are doing all of those together
and not simply competitively.
Another area that I would talk about would have been--more
extensively--about our work in Africa. Working, again, with
other U.S. universities, we responded, in the post-conflict
situation Rwanda, to develop women's cooperatives that have
raised the Rwandan coffee production from a minus-15-percent C-
grade all the way up to a premium coffee in Rwanda. It's
transforming communities all over the country.
Senator Lugar. Impressive.
Mr. Price. And this kind of model, we feel, is one that's
going to be fruitful elsewhere. But, at the same time, while we
were doing that, a colleague and I from USAID got caught in the
wrong place at the wrong time in the Ivory Coast, and we saw
the eyes of the rebels, and, for the next 2 years, I went back
again and again to negotiate with the rebels, to make a place
that we could begin again to do agricultural research.
And here again, I return to the problem of youth. When we
work with these leaders on the Force Nouvelle of West Africa,
it was the young people who had no future who would join these
forces and were being led to rebel in their countries. So,
again, I come back to the notion that we really need to look at
the problem of youth, and despairing youth in the many
populations where we work, not only in Central Asia and in the
Middle East, but also Africa and Latin America.
Thank you.
Senator Lugar. Thank you, sir.
Dr. Ejeta.
Dr. Ejeta. I'd like to go back to what I had said earlier,
and maybe--and clearly articulate that. And that is, the back-
to-basics approach that I sense in your bill, that education is
important, research is important, technology transfer is
important. The power of changing minds in farm communities, I--
in my paper, I indicate clearly, even in this country, with all
the resourcefulness or all--with all the desire to advance,
when hybrid corn, which, in my opinion, was really the true
first grain revolution in the world--when that came about, it
took nearly 25 years to go from zero to 95 percent of the
acreage of this country, because farmers are very deliberate;
they need to see whether or not there is return to their
investment.
Once farmers opened up to new technologies and then there
was a private sector and industry in place, and, 20 years
later, when there was hybrid sorghum, it was introduced in this
country, in 5 years we were able to get from zero to 95
percent.
And so, this process is a very long-term process. It
requires education, changing minds, one mind at a time in
development countries, particularly when you have a variety of
biophysical and cultural diversity. That education is a long-
term process.
But, to be able to do that, just like you would need
seasoning and mentoring with individuals, institutionally also
it requires that kind of mentoring and seasoning, and
therefore, the old system that this country had invested,
through strengthening of institutions in South America, in
Asia, in Africa, I would like to see that opportunity come back
again, where sister universities in this country will have
relationship with developing country and institutions to share
that knowledge, to share that gained wisdom through time, so
that what happens in Africa today doesn't happen. What happens
is, people who are not well trained are turning around and
training the next generation, because the need is so great and
it's a very desperate situation.
I think this is a very win-win situation for the U.S. to
share what it is good at, because--I am a product of this
system, and therefore, I'm biased, but education in the United
States, particularly higher education in this country, is par
excellence compared to anything that you see in other
countries. The fact--the land grant university concept is a
beautiful concept of tying education, research, and technology
transfer together, to be able to share that and begin to
implement and ingrain it in the minds of people and the
leadership.
And then, as I said, you understand policy a lot better
than I, but that policy element, to make sure that the policy--
the leaders of the country have faith and respect in education,
in science, and make sure that they support that activity
because it's in the long-term interests of their nations, is
very important.
And one last point is something that has been clearly
deliberated earlier in the first panel about coordination of
all program providers. And we talk about it mainly from
coordination here. And, as Dr. Bertini indicated, even
coordination on the ground over there is very important, not
only in rural development, particularly in science-based
activities, because if you go to any one of these poor
countries, the institutions there are not well staffed; and
yet, in any one country, there is, on the average, about 30
different agencies involved in agricultural development. And
when you look at it from the point of view of developing
countries, their few staff would be entertaining these science
providers, and so--and therefore, it really is taxing their
time and their effort. And some coordination of agencies, not
only from this country, from all around the world, that
requires significant care and coordination of those activities,
that whatever can be done in that regard would be very, very
useful to--to be more deliberate about channeling our efforts
together so that it's more concerted, more synergized for
greater benefit.
Senator Lugar. Well, I like the thought that our
universities might get together with comparable institutions,
or people in education anywhere, in Africa or Asia or Middle
East. And this gets to the point that Dr. Price was mentioning
about the youth. Not that everybody that attends these
universities is a young person, but most are. And this really
is a direct way of diplomacy with the most promising group of
people who have the most years still to live and to contribute
to this.
Likewise, I like your point about coordination on the
ground. We haven't touched upon this today, but it could be
that our ambassadors to each of the countries in the world, as
they go through their training here or through their hearings
even with this committee, need to have some background in
agricultural development, in food, the humanitarian interests,
as well as the diplomatic ones we've talked about today. And
some obviously do. These are seasoned persons, those who have
been in the Foreign Service for a long time, as well as those
Americans who will come into the ambassadorships without that
background. But, something has to happen in our embassies,
often, to bring about coordination. We talk a lot about this
with people dealing with statecraft, as opposed to the military
or intelligence, whether all of these folks are together. But,
these basic services on the ground you've been describing are
really a very important part of their success as diplomats.
Why, we thank both of you. The Chairman asked me to thank
both of you. He was detained in returning, but appreciates, as
I do, what we have heard today. And we thank you for your
patience and your diligence and your testimony.
And the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
----------
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Prepared Statement of Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Mr. Chairman, it is a great honor for me to address the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on the topic of U.S. foreign assistance and
the role of agricultural science. I have read Senate bill 384 with
great interest, and with your permission I will organize my comments
around various sections of the bill, and how they relate to my
experience and views on the need to revitalize the U.S. effort to
improve food and agriculture production worldwide.
Last year's spike in agricultural prices abated in part because of
weakness in national economies but the underlying problems have not
gone away. Land has been taken out of agriculture for other needs of
the growing world population. Within agriculture, the shift of land and
crops into energy production has played a role in food supply and
prices. Also, rising incomes in developing countries increase the
demand for meat which in turn requires more vegetable protein and
carbohydrates for animal feeds. Weather and conflict also played a role
in the food crisis.
But the most important factor that caused the crisis, which we
address today through the Global Food Security Act of 2009, is the 25-
year decline in investment in international agricultural research,
education and extension. Lower investment in agricultural science and
infrastructure undermined the capacity of farmers worldwide to keep
pace with human needs. Expenditures by the U.S. Agency for
International Development in long-term programs for agricultural
science and education peaked in 1984 at over $800 million and have
declined to well less than $100 million today.
Here I am referring to programs authorized by Title XII of the
Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended in 1975 and 2000. These
programs are administered by the U.S. Agency for International
Development in partnership with U.S. universities and the Consultative
Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). These programs
are the lifeblood of worldwide collaborative agricultural research,
education and extension in agriculture.
This sad story of the failure to invest in long-term global food
security continues. My colleague, Dean Allen Levine, at the University
of Minnesota states it well: ``In the blizzard of new research funding
created by the federal stimulus bill, an important science was omitted:
Agriculture. While $10 billion was included for the National Institutes
of Health, $3 million for the National Science Foundation, and $2
billion for the Energy Department, not a penny was dedicated for
competitive research in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.''
The distinguished 30-year member of this body, Senator Mark
Hatfield, was a champion of international agricultural research and
education, including one of my favorite efforts--international
collaborative research on wheat. Senator Hatfield stated that federal
expenditures for Title XII programs of USAID were the most effective
dollars in all of U.S. foreign assistance. Mr. Chairman, for these
programs, Senate bill 384 authorizes up to $45 million for university
international collaborative research programs, and up to $50 million
for the CGIAR.
These are welcome moneys for the programs in which I have served
much of my life. But when I compare the numbers: 1 billion people
suffering from food insecurity; $15 billion stimulus research funds
excluding agriculture; and $95 million designated for international
agricultural research, I respectfully suggest that we are
underinvesting in the last--the most effective programs in all of U.S.
foreign assistance. As you know, such research does not only assist the
suffering and malnourished populations around the world, it also
benefits U.S. interests in terms of enhanced food quality, nutrition,
trade promotion, and food safety (including defense from imported food-
borne disease).
The broader provisions of the Global Food Security Act of 2009 are
an appropriate response for the longer term. Title I of the act that we
consider today provides the needed focus on the problem of hunger. It
takes a comprehensive whole-of-government approach to planning that is
widely collaborative with international agencies; and it provides for
careful monitoring, evaluation, and reporting.
I note that there will be consultation with the ``academic and
research community.'' This is not enough. Please be aware that the part
of the academic and research community which will be most valuable in
combating hunger are the ``doers.'' You need the engagement, not only
the consultation, of that engine which drove U.S. agriculture to become
the best in the world--the combined, integrated effort of teachers,
researchers, and extension agents of the U.S. land grant system. Their
work is on the farms, throughout villages, and in the laboratories of
the world. You must engage them in robust collaborative programs with
foreign counterparts at every level, especially in fields, forests,
farms and livestock enterprises. These are the soldiers in the use of
soft power to build effective bridges with other countries and advance
U.S. foreign policy.
Now I turn to the provisions of Title II related to Bilateral
Programs. These are aimed toward eliminating starvation, hunger, and
malnutrition; providing basic services to the rural poor; and improving
incomes and employment of the rural poor through agriculture and other
rural enterprise. New provisions added by Senate bill 384 highlight
conservation farming to respond to changing climatic conditions, health
and nutrition programs for those in extreme poverty and the landless,
nutrition for children and lactating mothers, and advanced genetics
technology. I especially welcome confirmation of the need to use the
best technology available, including biotechnology to meet world food
needs.
The point needs to be made, however, that the major U.S. university
contributions to improving agricultural and food production in the
past--until the decline began in the late 1980s--were embodied in
bilateral programs. Past programs for training the scientists and
leaders from developing countries, reaching 15,000 participant trainees
at one time, were contained in bilateral programs. Major programs in
agricultural research, teaching and extension (including agricultural
enterprise development and agribusiness) were bilateral programs in
cooperation with U.S. universities and advised by the Board for
International Food and Agricultural Development.
Since 1984, bilateral programs have gradually become the province
of consulting firms, and in the process, agricultural development has
lost its science base. U.S. foreign assistance in agriculture largely
stopped supporting long-term investment in human, technological, and
institutional capital in agriculture. Such investment is critical for
global agriculture to thrive. That is why there is a global food
crisis, and that is why, as stated in the Findings in the preface this
act, another 133 million were added to the world's hungry between 2006
and 2007.
Bilateral programs need to be rebuilt on a scientific base, and
driven by vigorous programs for the development of human and
institutional capital in developing countries. Title II of this act
should explicitly identify University Partnerships for Agriculture as
an instrument of choice for bilateral programs. I know that the schools
that have been most closely associated with my work, the University of
Minnesota, Iowa State University, Cornell University and Texas A&M
University, and all the other land grant universities that played such
important roles in the earliest Point Four and later ICA programs would
be highly pleased to reengage with USAID in programs of bilateral
technical assistance.
Incidentally I hope that such engagement of universities in USAID's
programs of bilateral assistance will have a secondary effect of a
resurgence in scholarship on agricultural development that flourished
under the leadership of such colleagues as the late Theodore Schultz,
Vernon Ruttan, the Edward Schuh. We are in great need today for new
study and understanding of the processes of agricultural development
and how best to direct and evaluate our effort.
Title III of this act very usefully revises and simplifies Title
XII of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 as revised by the Freedom
From Hunger and Famine Prevention Improvement Act of 2000. I concur
with the provisions of this title in its two previous versions, and
especially as rendered in this act. Probably we could have accomplished
what is needed under previous versions of the title had the provisions
been followed by action. What are needed most under these
authorizations are leadership, funding, and persistence. Nevertheless
the language of this revised title sets our direction and methods more
clearly than ever before.
Section 298 of Title III identifies types of support that includes
``continued efforts by international agricultural research centers . .
. '' Elsewhere funding is authorized at levels of up to $50 million for
the CGIAR. To promote expanded, long-term fruitful collaboration
between the CGIAR and U.S. universities I suggest that funding for the
CGIAR be doubled and that half of these increased funds be designated
for cooperation with U.S. universities, through student internship and
study programs, cooperative research projects, and extension effort
carried out in developing countries by U.S. university extension
personnel. In my experience, U.S. university cooperation with the CGIAR
returns great benefits to the U.S. agricultural science community, to
private firms that employ the agricultural graduates of U.S.
universities, and to beneficiaries in developing countries.
I now turn to Section 299, the Higher Education Collaboration for
Technology, Agriculture, Research and Extension. As stated earlier with
respect to bilateral programs, I believe that U.S. universities should
be reengaged in a wide range of agricultural development efforts in
developing countries. The proposed HECTARE program is an important
initiative in this regard, with the very useful feature of putting host
country institutions in leadership roles. The confidence and respect
that this kind of program demonstrates toward developing country
institutions is the most important new advancement incorporated in this
title.
It has been my experience that building human capital and
institutions for extension and research is most successful when the
programs are built around solving specific problems facing agricultural
production and food security. I suggest that the elements of the
assistance plans under this section of Title III be required to include
strong statements of problems to be solved or specific bodies of
technical work to be accomplished. Agricultural development must be
focused on meeting current needs of agricultural communities. Such
focus on specific problems coalesces leadership and increases
commitment to produce meaningful results.
This gives me a chance now, in conclusion, to suggest the areas of
research, teaching, and extension that I believe to be paramount in the
coming years to move us well ahead of the world food crisis.
First, nothing encourages me more about the future than to see the
young high school students who come to participate in the World Food
Prize Youth Institute every year in Des Moines. Youth agricultural
programs are generally neglected in U.S. foreign assistance, the
international agricultural research centers, and in the national
agricultural programs of developing countries. Please find ways in the
bilateral programs and the university partnership provisions of this
act to give early support and hope to youth in agriculture. This is
critical to rural communities in poor countries, and to the safety and
security nations faced with poverty and disillusionment. Throughout the
developing world, the youth bulge continues to put strains on economic
and social systems. Large-scale support of youth agricultural programs
will promote entrepreneurship, civic responsibility, technical
training, community health, and food production.
Second, find ways to address head-on the competition for land,
water, and other inputs between food and nonfood enterprises. Science
can find answers that will reduce the pressure on food prices that is
caused by the other agricultural enterprises. Seek complementarities or
independence in modes of production of food and energy crop production
through research and extension.
Finally, never underestimate the ability of the natural world to
continually evolve to create new diseases, pests, and other problems
for agriculture. Agriculture is a combination of biological sciences,
social sciences, human health, and business. As such, it is never
static. We should never have let our investment in agricultural
research, extension, and education to fall so far behind the steady
growth in demand for agricultural products. Improvement in crop and
animal genetics requires bold, responsive, and persistent scientific
effort, everywhere in the world. I have been combating the devastating
wheat stem rust disease that has spread across Africa and Southwest
Asia. It is development challenges like this that need continual
attention by policymakers and researchers alike to provide farmers the
technology necessary for achieving food security.
Thank you for inviting me to make these comments. It has been an
enormous honor for me to have a small role in establishing the Global
Food Security Act of 2009.
______
Alliance for Global Food Security,
Washington, DC, March 23, 2009.
Hon. John F. Kerry, Chairman,
Hon. Richard G. Lugar, Ranking Minority Member,
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Kerry and Senator Lugar: On behalf of the Alliance
for Global Food Security, I respectfully submit this letter as
testimony for the March 24, 2009, Committee on Foreign Relations
hearing on ``Alleviating Global Hunger: Challenges and Opportunities
for U.S. Leadership.''
The members of the Alliance are private voluntary organizations and
cooperatives (jointly called ``PVOs'' in this letter) that are
committed to addressing hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity. They
operate in approximately 100 developing countries, implementing
emergency and development programs that directly engage, support and
build the capacity of local communities, enterprises and institutions.
Our members seek adequate resources for food security programs and the
adoption of government policies that support multifaceted programs that
address the underlying causes of hunger. Thus we are most grateful that
the committee is holding a hearing on opportunities for U.S. leadership
in alleviating global hunger.
THE HUNGER QUANDARY
An important element of American's foreign policy is ``soft
power,'' which entails focusing more resources on addressing problems
before they become crises, building local capacity and institutions,
and conveying America's compassion to the world. There is perhaps no
greater example of a ``problem'' that can lead to a crisis than hunger
and its underlying causes, and perhaps no greater way to show
compassion than to decrease the chances that an individual, community
and nation will suffer from hunger.
Yet, tackling hunger seems a daunting task. Just the sheer number
of people affected by hunger is overwhelming. While the first
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) is to cut hunger in half by 2015, the
number of people suffering from chronic hunger actually increased from
800 million in 1996 to 842 million in 2004. With escalating food and
fuel prices in 2007 and 2008, the number increased even more to 963
million. In addition to these chronic needs, as we can read in the
paper nearly every day, millions more are facing starvation due to
emergencies arising from adverse weather, natural disasters, conflicts,
economic downturns, and detrimental government polices.
``Food security'' covers an array of factors that assure a person,
community and country will not suffer from hunger. It is defined in the
U.S. Food for Peace Act as ``access by all people at all times to
sufficient food and nutrition for healthy and productive lives.'' Food
security can be broken down into three major components: (1)
Availability of food, usually in the market or from production; (2)
ability to access food through procurement, production and safety net
programs, and the distribution of food among household and community
members; and (3) utilization of food, which includes the affect of
preparation and ability to digest and absorb nutrients.
Food security is negatively affected by a wide range of issues,
including poor agricultural productivity; high unemployment; low and
unpredictable incomes; remoteness of farm communities; susceptibility
to natural disasters, civil unrest and instability; wide discrepancies
between the well-off and the poor; chronic disease; and lack of basic
health, education, water and sanitation services. Well-planned and
well-executed agriculture, rural development, health, nutrition, and
food aid programs address these underlying causes of hunger. The
integration of all of these types of programs in the field can provide
an even more powerful and lasting impact. Countries with failing
governments, lack of protection for their citizens, and conflicts are
those where we see protracted and severe hunger, indicating the
importance of incorporating food security issues into U.S. diplomatic
and security efforts.
Thus, to eradicate hunger the multiple aspects of food security
must be addressed, which requires a comprehensive approach. The Global
Food Security Act of 2009 (S. 384), introduced by Senators Richard
Lugar and Robert Casey, is intended to set in motion a U.S. Government
strategy to address the food security needs of the developing world.
This legislation provides an opportunity to establish food security as
a theme of U.S. foreign aid, to expand agriculture, rural development
and nutrition programs, and to focus more resources on improving the
living conditions, productivity and livelihoods of small farmers,
pastoralists and the rural poor.
The Alliance for Global Food Security is most grateful for the
leadership of Senators Lugar and Casey in developing this bill. We urge
congressional action, but believe several improvements are needed to
cover current gaps in food security programming and to ensure the
engagement of the poor communities where the need is greatest.
COORDINATED POLICIES AND PROGRAMS
One hurdle for establishing a unified U.S. policy on global food
security is that our Nation's food security programs are administered
by multiple agencies and are not well coordinated. Most global food
security programs are administered by the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID), but there are significant programs at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and Department of State. Several other
agencies also are involved in various ways, including the Department of
Defense, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Department of the
Treasury, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the
Department of Health and Human Resources. However, there is no
comprehensive framework that identifies objectives, the contributions
of each agency or program, and the expected outcomes. A food security
framework would allow the identification of best practices, commonality
of indicators to track progress and results across multiple
interventions, and increased effectiveness by scaling up programs that
work.
To develop and to track progress of such a strategy, a coordinator
with sufficient authority and resources is needed. The 1988 Aid to
Trade Missions Act established a White House position that is now
called the ``Special Assistant to the President for Food and
Agriculture,'' who could be given the food security portfolio and the
responsibility to bring together stakeholders and government officials
that manage these programs and develop a government-wide strategy. This
is essentially the role envisioned for the ``White House Coordinator on
Food Security'' that would be established in S. 384.
While responsibility for each program ultimately must lie with the
appropriate administrative agency, a White House Coordinator and the
establishment of a global food security strategy would allow the U.S.
Government to bring together the expertise and capacities of multiple
agencies, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations to
address the problem. Currently, there are interagency working groups on
specific issues, such as food aid and last year's food crisis, but a
method for ongoing consultations among relevant government and
nongovernmental officials does not exist.
Thus, the Coordinator should be required to establish a process for
ongoing consultations with government agencies as well as
nongovernmental organizations that conduct international antihunger
programs.
Even within USAID, where most food security programs are
administered, different programs addressing food security could be
better coordinated or linked to others and would be benefited from
ongoing consultations with stakeholders.
There is an opportunity as part of S. 384 to leverage and to
improve program effectiveness by ensuring that USAID's bureaus,
offices, overseas missions and programs related to food security are
coordinated and that synergies among different programs are embraced.
As one example, the Food for Peace Office is under the USAID Bureau
for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA) and the
Agriculture Office is under the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture
and Trade (EGAT). Food for Peace's primary objective is to promote food
security through the use of Public Law 480, Title II food aid. Most of
the funds are provided for emergency aid. However, there are also
developmental programs that are implemented by PVOs primarily in poor,
rural areas where the majority of people are landless laborers,
smallholder farmers and pastoralists. Those PVO food aid programs have
resulted in increased incomes and agriculture productivity, decreased
malnutrition among young children, the development of viable
agricultural and other enterprises, and stronger safety nets and
community groups to support social services.
Hunger alleviation and the rural poor are also the focus of section
103 of the Foreign Assistance Act (Agriculture, Rural Development and
Nutrition), which has the following objectives--``(A) to alleviate
starvation, hunger, and malnutrition; (B) to expand significantly the
provision of basic services to rural poor people to enhance their
capacity for self-help; and (C) to create productive farm and off-farm
employment in rural areas to provide a more viable economic base and
enhance opportunities for improved income, living standards, and
contributions by rural poor people. . . . '' Since opportunities for
using the Food for Peace program for agriculture-related programs are
limited and additional funding is needed to scale up and to expand
those community-based programs, it would seem logical that development
assistance funds provided through EGAT or USAID missions should be
available.
However, there are few opportunities where a PVO or cooperative can
access development assistance funds for directly working with and
mobilizing chronically poor, rural households.
Agriculture assistance funds are rarely available to support the
PVO approach of working directly with rural communities on the adoption
of appropriate technologies; improving agricultural productivity;
strengthening farmer organizations, agricultural enterprises and
cooperatives; linking smallholder farmers to markets, inputs and
financial services; improving rural infrastructure and natural resource
management; and strengthening institutions to support the needy and to
improve nutrition of vulnerable groups. Clearly, this is one issue that
we urge the committee to remedy if it marks up food security
legislation.
THE FOOD CRISIS AND ITS IMPACT ON THE RURAL POOR
The lack of food security planning and resources became very
apparent last year as food and fuel prices soared, resulting in
protests in over 30 poor countries and adding 100 million people to the
850 million already suffering from hunger. The United Nations, The
World Bank and other international institutions that reviewed the
history of the food crisis found that for two decades demand for food
had been growing due to population growth, higher incomes, and the
diversification of diets. During that period, public and private
investment in agriculture in developing countries had been declining
and external assistance to agriculture dropped from 20 percent of
Official Development Assistance in the early 1980s to 3 percent by
2007. Production in most developing countries was stagnant or dropped
as the international markets offered low prices for staples.
Prices for basic foodstuffs began rising again in 2004 and peaked
in 2007/2008, when world grain stocks fell to their lowest levels in 30
years. By that point, net food-importing developing countries were hit
the hardest as they lacked sufficient reserves.
Last year, when prices peaked, there was great concern about urban
populations, as they rely on markets and not their own agriculture
production. Indeed, the impact was most obvious in urban areas, as
people who were not previously considered food insecure could not buy
sufficient amounts of food and the visibility of protests and threat of
political instability drew attention to their needs.
However, three out of five poor people in developing countries
reside in rural areas, where the majority of households are net food
consumers and the majority of farms are small, have low productivity
and are not linked to markets, inputs or financial services. For
smallholder farmers and pastoralists, rising costs of and poor access
to inputs and services made it more difficult to maintain production
levels at previous rates, and even if they had excess to sell, lack of
access to markets made it difficult to get a high price. Thus, they
could not respond to or benefit from the opportunity that increased
demand and higher prices for food should have provided. On balance,
they were actually set back by the price increases.
THE COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION
In June 2008, government leaders held a High Level Conference on
Food Security to discuss the food crisis. They produced the
``Comprehensive Framework for Action (CFA)'' that identifies objectives
and outcomes needed to realize the global commitments laid out in the
MDGs and to address the global hunger crisis.
The CFA has two main objectives: ``(1) To improve access to food
and nutrition support and increase food availability, by meeting the
immediate needs of vulnerable populations;'' and ``(2) to address the
underlying factors driving the food crisis, by building longer term
resilience and contributing to global food and nutrition security.'' To
meet these short- and long-term objectives, the CFA calls for the
following actions--
1. Provide access to emergency food assistance, nutrition
interventions and safety nets;
2. Expand social protection systems through both food and
cash inputs;
3. Boost smallholder farmer food production (short term) and
sustain improvements in smallholder food production (longer
term) through such things as supplying critical inputs and
services, rehabilitating rural and agricultural infrastructure,
linking small-scale farmers to markets, investing in crop,
animal and fisheries research, supporting the development of
producer organizations and private enterprises, and
implementing supportive policies;
4. Adjust tax and trade policies;
5. Manage macro-economic implications, such as inflation and
financing food imports;
6. Improve international food markets by reducing
agricultural trade distortions and providing aid-for-trade to
developing countries; and
7. Develop an international consensus on biofuels.
All of these items, plus others, are appropriate to consider when
developing a U.S. global food security strategy. The first three items
are also relevant to the provisions of S. 384 that would amend section
103 and other agriculture-related provisions of the Foreign Assistance
Act (FAA) and create a new fund for food emergencies.
AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND NUTRITION
S. 384 amends section 103 of the FAA, Agriculture, Rural
Development and Nutrition, by adding 3 new objectives: Expand economic
participation of and safety nets for people living in extreme poverty,
support conservation farming and sustainable agricultural techniques in
response to climate change, and improve nutrition of vulnerable
populations, such as children under the age of two. It authorizes
appropriations for fiscal years 2010 through 2014 for section 103
programs, starting at $750,000,000 in FY 2010 and increasing to
$2,500,000,000 by 2014. The legislation also requires funding for U.S.
universities and colleges to promote research and support institutions
of higher learning in developing countries through a new program called
``Higher Education Collaboration for Technology, Agriculture, Research,
and Extension,'' or ``HECTARE,'' starting at $100 million in FY 2010
and increasing to $500 million in FY 2014.
Expanding the objectives of section 103, authorizing increased
funding and calling for increased investments in locally appropriate
research and technologies are steps toward greater U.S. engagement in
food security, but an important piece must be added. S. 384, current
law and the CFA point to the importance of improving the productivity,
incomes and nutrition of poor, rural populations, which is an area
where PVOs and cooperatives have expertise and a track record. Yet, as
noted earlier, development assistance funds are rarely made available
by USAID to PVOs and cooperatives for these purposes and the bill does
not address this problem.
To remedy this gap we seek an amendment to assure that USAID
establishes a program, or programs, to provide assistance through PVOs
and cooperatives that can effectively mobilize and build capacity in
rural and poor communities in order to achieve the objectives of
section 103. The size and details of such a program would be left to
the discretion of the Administrator.
PVOs establish local relationships in order to work directly with
affected communities and households to solve their food security
problems. As part of their programs, local institutions, associations
and businesses are developed and strengthened in order to create more
durable benefits. PVOs have demonstrated their ability to increase
agricultural productivity and incomes for the poor, to improve natural
resource management and to improve nutrition and care for the most
vulnerable. Their potential is currently underutilized in agriculture
and rural development programs and this amendment will take a step to
assure they are incorporated into these critical development efforts.
RESOURCES TO RESPOND TO FOOD CRISES
A more holistic and preventative approach to food crises is needed.
A significant portion of Public Law 480, Title II funds is already
available for emergency food needs and the Bill Emerson Humanitarian
Trust is a back up reserve of funds in case Title II funding is
insufficient for these purposes. International Disaster Assistance
provides cash funding for emergency needs, including local and regional
purchase, and some disaster funds are used for monitoring and
preparedness. However, too little funding is available for risk
reduction and responses that lead to a more rapid and complete
recovery.
S. 384 establishes and authorizes $500,000,000 in appropriations
for the ``Emergency Food Assistance Fund,'' which can be used for
urgent food assistance needs, including local and regional purchase and
distribution of food and nonfood assistance. To distinguish this new
Fund from other authorized programs, to be sure it covers the potential
range of emergency needs, and to be more preventative than just
response oriented, we suggest adding several additional uses.
In addition to local purchase, cash transfers, food vouchers and
nonfood resources for urgent needs, resources and assistance from this
Fund should be available for risk management and prevention, early
intervention and mitigation of the potential impact of a food crisis,
and actions that support more rapid and complete recovery.
Mr. Chairman and Senator Lugar, the Alliance is most grateful for
your concern and desire to address global hunger. We would be pleased
to respond to questions or to provide additional information that may
be helpful in your efforts.
Sincerely,
Ellen Levinson,
Executive Director.
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