Hope Not Hype - Third World Network

84 Hope Not Hype
either inefficient agricultural production or a more globally envisioned need for more
food is wrong” (Vandermeer and Perfecto, 2007, p. 274). As discussed in Chapter Two,
the world currently produces food surpluses and thus expansion of agricultural land is not
necessarily inevitable.
The capacity to produce food locally rather than to import food from subsidized
agricultural systems would better address the problem of food insecurity than would further
intensification (UNEP/UNCTAD, 2008). This can be achieved without environmentdamaging
practices. For example, water stress is the most common limiting factor for
yield (Delmer, 2005). Adopting techniques that preserve soil moisture and make water
uptake more efficient can improve yield (Heinemann, 2008; Schiermeier, 2008). Increasing
the yield of low-yield farmers to within 80% of the yield of high-yield farmers under the
same limiting water conditions would close the food gap (Molden, 2007).
The more intensive agriculture becomes, the more it demands of “marginal” or nonagricultural
land and water to replenish what is taken through production and repair the
damage from planting, harvesting, grazing and so on. Intensification has therefore been
associated with declines in biodiversity.
Modern agricultural practices have been broadly linked to declines in biodiversity in agroecosystems.
This has been found to be true for a wide variety of taxonomic groups, geographic
regions and spatial scales. More specifically, various researchers have found significant
correlations between reductions in biodiversity at various taxonomic levels and agricultural
intensification. For example, a review of published studies on arthropod diversity in
agricultural landscapes found species biodiversity to be higher in less intensely cultivated
habitats…Across Europe, declines in farmland bird diversity are correlated with agricultural
intensity (Ammann, 2005, pp. 388-389).
In this regard, it has been argued that cropping systems dominated by GM plants are
less damaging to biodiversity (Ammann, 2005). However, as discussed in Chapter Six,
GM plants either are not unique in the ways that they are biodiversity-friendly or are
undermining their short-lived contributions because of the promotion of simplistic
agrochemical weed controls. What is more, conclusions on these putative gains from GM
cropping are largely derived by comparison to the most damaging conventional methods
rather than by comparison to cropping systems based on integrated pest management and
agroecological methods.
Agricultural systems that were less damaging to begin with would require less from
non-agricultural land for ecosystem services and would support the key species necessary
to maintain biodiversity both on and off the farm. Agriculture biotechnologies such as
organic agriculture achieve this, but are criticized as being incapable of producing enough
food. “It takes three times the land to produce the same yield [through organic agriculture
as] grown conventionally, so going organic could remove wild spaces, compromise
biodiversity and mean hunger for many” (Keith, 2008, p. 18).
Fortunately, such assertions from the agrochemical industry are now facing serious
contention from the peer-reviewed research literature (Badgley et al., 2007; Posner et al.,
2008). The World Health Organization concluded that “[t]ransforming the agricultural