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UNESCO
urges radical change in agriculture
PARIS - Agricultural countries
must urgently change their policies to avoid worldwide social
breakdown and environmental collapse, a report by the UN’s
education and scientific agency UNESCO recently.
The report by a study group of some 400 experts came amid
mounting alarm at the social and political upheavals that
world leaders fear could be triggered by rising food prices.
“Modern agriculture will have to change radically to
better serve the poor and hungry if the world is to cope with
a growing population and climate change while avoiding social
breakdown and environmental collapse,” said the International
Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development.
The experts concluded that “continuing with current trends
in production and distribution would exhaust our resources
and put our children’s future in jeopardy.”
Basic foodstuff prices have all risen sharply in recent months,
sparking violent protests in many countries, including Egypt,
Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Madagascar, the
Philippines and Indonesia.
Prices in staple foods such as rice, maize and wheat are expected
to continue to rise, said the report.
The director of the study group, Bob Watson, said calling
for changes to agricultural practices was an “old message”
that “has not always had resonance in some parts of the
world.”
“If those with power are now willing to hear it, then
we may hope for more equitable policies that do take the interests
of the poor into account,” said Watson.
The report urged agricultural science to pay greater attention
to safeguarding natural resources and to promoting “agro-ecological”
practices, such as the use of natural fertilisers and traditional
seeds and reducing the distance between the farm and the consumer.
The study group was formed in 2002 by the United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organisation and the World Bank. (AFP)
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