SCRI Annual Report 2003/2004 - Scottish Crop Research Institute

Director’s Report
tion. Other sustainability issues are balancing inputs
and outputs with improved knowledge of crop nutrient
needs; the use of animal and green manures, composts,
peat, sewage sludges, abattoir wastes, and lime;
above-ground and below-ground region-specific biodiversity;
the design and establishment of refugia and
dispersal corridors (mainly wide headlands and wide
and tall hedgerows) for native flora and fauna; curtailing
agricultural emissions (greenhouse gases, pollutants,
pharmaceuticals etc.); and improved water
management (protected and semi-protected cropping,
irrigation, hydroponics, avoidance of flooding and silt
damage, avoidance of salinity problems etc.). More
refined weather and market forecasts, and monitoring
(often remote) of the weather, crop performance, and
pest and disease incidence have given rise to effective
decision-support systems as an essential modern farming
tool. Inadequate attention has been given in
recent times to crop rotation – the successive cultivation
of different crops in a specified order on the same
field. In central Africa, 36-year rotations have been
reported with a crop of finger millet rotating with a
35-year growth of woody shrubs and trees. In principle,
similar systems prevail in the rest of the world
where long-lasting perennial plantation crops (e.g.
raspberries) are rotated with conventional annual or
biennial arable crops. Short-term planning in the allocation
of research funding has by-passed long-term
studies using modern technologies on the impacts of
specific crops and their rotations on soil fertility and
soil structure.
In concert with modern mathematics, chemistry,
physics, computing and information technology, supply-chain
management, food and industrial product
processing, and satellites, transgenic technology with
its hugely innovative potential to address hitherto
intractable environmental, human and plant health,
quality, and production efficiency issues, is but the latest
scientific advance in the progress of global agriculture,
horticulture, managed forestry, and the human
condition. According to J.S. McLaren of StrathKirn
Inc., the next phase of agriculture will be the age of the
biorefiner, involving bioprospecting, biomimetics, biocatalysis,
biomaterials, and the design and exploitation
of organic compounds and products derived from
them, and biologically derived energy. This view is
supported by the recent investment decisions of many
major corporations. Many rapidly developing LDCs
such as India and China regard modern agriculture as
the key to their future economic success, reform, and
sustainability. 2002-2003.
Types of Agriculture In the MDCs, organic, conventional,
and ‘biotech’ (GMO-based) farming is practiced
to varying degrees; in the LDCs, there also
remains subsistence or peasant agriculture that confines
its practitioners to grinding poverty and little dignity.
Organic agriculture in the MDCs operates with
a focus on soil fertility, ecological principles, crop rotation,
and a belief in the rectitude, sustainability, and
biodiversity-enhancing characteristics of its approach
and the validity of its rules which preclude synthetic
fertilisers, synthetic pesticides, and GM crops.
Criticisms of the organic model include (a) its inability
to validate claims as to the health-enhancing qualities
of organic foods, (b) its low productivity compared
with conventional and biotech agriculture, (c) dependence
on the use of poisonous copper salts, (d) acceptance
of blemished produce and the risk of mycotoxins
and other antinutritionals as well as reduced vitamin C
levels, (e) reliance on faecal fertilisation with consequential
concerns about contamination of organic produce
by food-poisoning micro-organisms and the eggs
of parasitic nematodes as well as concerns about the
pollution of water courses, (f) organic farms and holdings
acting as repositories of pests and diseases, (g)
reliance on tilling leading to damage of soil structure
and the release of greenhouse gases, (h) marketing
based on (or associated with) criticism of and sometimes
scaremongering about conventional and biotech
agriculture, (i) reluctance to adopt and suspicion of
new scientific and technological advances, although
modern breeding systems not involving transgenic
organisms, and molecular diagnostics are accepted, (j)
the inability of organic farming methods to meet
increasing demands on global food supplies without
encroachment on natural habitats, (k) the high cost of
production compared with conventional and agbiotech
systems, and (l) susceptibility of organic produce to
competition from fraudulently labelled conventional
produce.
Conventional agriculture covers a wide spectrum from
the unsustainable to the sustainable. The more
advanced conventional systems have adopted new scientific,
engineering, and technological approaches, and
have shown long-term systematic productivity
improvements. Conventional farming has met the
nutritional needs and demands of a rapidly expanding
global population. Criticisms of the conventional
model include the following. (a) The reliance on
tillage still prevails in most types of conventional agriculture
and there is only a slow uptake of no-tillage or
minimum-tillage systems. (b) Efficiency gains have led
to politically embarrassing surpluses even if they have
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