Prospect of organic farming for food security

Notwithstanding amazing success in agricultural production, both food security and safety in Bangladesh are now suspect. The myth of self-sufficiency in food — actually meaning staples or more precisely rice — has got busted. Earlier there was a litany of rhetoric that the country was producing enough or near enough foods to feed its population.

All that has become evident now is the government's inability to protect the consumers' rights when traders take undue advantage of output shortfall or even when there is a sufficient stock of some essentials. It routinely happens in case of staples and onion. Although the production of the spice-cum-vegetable has been more than the country needs — if the official data are to be believed, the prices fluctuate merely on India's announcement of export restriction or its withdrawal. Right at this moment market is witnessing such a fall in its prices after an arbitrary rise even in the peak harvesting period. 

Even potato which year after year had to be disposed of at throwaway prices or even fed to cattle or simply left to rot on account of low prices at a level that did not cover even the carrying cost, has become costliest ever this harvesting season. The potato glut in the market earlier was not a myth and it was exported to countries like Russia to buoy up prices. The reach of trade coteries' power is so long that it can make and unmake facts. Of course, official data are at variance from one organisation to another. In case of agricultural yields, therefore, there is no way to be sure about the authenticity of figures.

Well, cooking oil and sugar — the two items the country has mostly to import because domestic production is negligible — are even strong candidates for business manipulation. The unethically motivated coteries do not disappoint in this regard as their limitless avarice prompts them to make the most of the crisis. There is no doubt that much of the woe caused by high inflation, by extension, a lack of access to quality foods is manmade.

However, the recent heat waves and unnatural rains in the Middle East as part of a natural scheme of things have brought to the fore the ugly truth that countries – rich or poor – may have to brace for farming practices never known before. It looks like more formidable villains in the form of climate change are joining hands with people driven by only profit motive here. Climate-resilient agriculture has by now become a parlance among agriculture scientists. It is exactly at this point environmentalists the other day protested the experiment with 'golden rice' and 'Bt brinjal or eggplant'. They complain that genetically modified crops can do more harms than good in the long run if those become resistant to antibiotics.

In fact, by inserting a gene from soil bacterium Bacillus thuringenisis (Bt) into eggplant, the new variety was created by US giant Monsanto. Attempts were made to introduce it in India and the Philippines but in the face of strong protests, its cultivation was put on hold. Pest-resistant, the eggplant gives 30 per cent more yields. Similarly, Golden rice is also genetically engineered to fortify it with vitamin A. The Court of Appeals in the Philippines, on scrutiny of the evidence presented, issued on April 17, 2024, 'a cease-and-desist order on the commercial propagation' of the two GM crops — Golden rice and Bt eggplant, citing a lack of 'full scientific certainty' in relation to their impacts on human health and environment.

If India and the Philippines do not approve of the GM crops, Bangladesh has no reason to go ahead for their introduction until their full scientific certainty has been ascertained. Then there is the threat from pesticide use to fight pests for maintaining high yields of crops, which is not environmentally sound. Bangladesh also has the additional problem of artificial ripening of fruits and preservation of perishable vegetables by application of harmful chemicals.

Clearly both food security and safety are under threat in the more challenging conditions of climate turmoil. Then what can be a reasonable farming practice for Bangladesh and other countries facing food insecurity? The World Bank said as late as Monday last that changes in farming practices could slash one-third of global greenhouse gas emission by the end of the decade. If changes in the agro-food systems can do so, what are the alternatives? Reduction of one-third greenhouse gas emission is a lucrative proposition but the details of what the WB says "affordable and readily available actions" should be made public.

The WB suggests that the middle-income countries which are the top 10 gas emitters including the top three — China, India and Brazil can make a number of changes such as moving to low-emission livestock practices and making more sustainable use of land. Use of 'land such as forests and ecosystems', the WB goes further, can cut emissions. But then it urges for technical assistance from the US, the fourth-largest polluter. This is ambiguous and looks like targeting agriculture instead of factories and industries? Just 57 oil, gas, coal and cement producers have been responsible for 80 per cent of the global CO2 emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement.

So investment is needed for cleaner and sustainable agricultural practices. Bangladesh has already developed an economised irrigation system and a number of educated young farmers are practising organic farming with tremendous success. The need is to replicate those methods and multilateral agencies can make funds available for farmers to do so in poor countries.            

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