Will Science Save From Another Food Crisis

Ramadgani Juma tries to figure out what is destroying his cassava crop. "Perhaps too much water," he says, sorting through withered leaves on a two-meter-tall plant. "Or too much sun." Juma cultivates half a hectare near the town of Bagamoyo, on the coast of the Indian Ocean 60 kilometers north of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

On a rainy March morning, the farmer, accompanied by two of his four sons, talks to a specialist from the big city, 28-year-old Deogratius Mark, who works at the Mykochenii Agricultural Research Institute. According to Mark, neither the sun nor the rain is to blame for Juma's plantation problem. The real cassava killers are too small to be seen with the naked eye.

Mark plucks some wet leaves from which whiteflies fly. These tiny insects, he explains, carry 2 strains of viruses. One affects the leaves of cassava, and the other, the causative agent of "brown spot", destroys the edible starchy root. This disaster is usually noticed only during harvest. Juma is typical of the many farmers Mark often meets: most of them have never heard of viral diseases. "You can imagine his reaction if I tell you that you will have to uproot all the plants," says Mark in a whisper.

Juma is dressed in tattered blue shorts and a faded green T-shirt. He listens carefully to Mark's diagnosis, then takes off the heavy hoe from his shoulder and starts digging. The eldest ten-year-old son is gnawing on a cassava leaf. Having reached the root, Juma cuts it open with one blow of the hoe and sighs: the creamy white flesh is covered with brown spots of rot.

In order to save at least part of the harvest for sale and food for the family, Juma will have to harvest cassava a month earlier. When asked how important this plant is to him, he answers in Swahili: "Migogo ni kila kitu." "Cassava is everything."

Most Tanzanians are subsistence farmers. In Africa, small family farms grow more than 90% of all crops, and cassava is the staple food for more than 250 million people. It grows even on unsuitable soils and can withstand heat and drought. It would be an ideal crop for 21st century Africa, if it weren't for the whitefly, whose range is expanding as the climate warms. The same viruses that damaged Juma's crops have already spread throughout East Africa. How can this be done?

The answer to this question will be one of the biggest challenges of this century. Climate change and population growth continue to threaten Juma, Kagembe and other smallholder farmers in developing countries, as well as the people they feed. For most of the 20th century, humanity managed to win the Malthusian race between population growth and food security. Will we stay ahead in the 21st century, or will global catastrophe overtake us?

За прогнозами ООН, до 2050 року додасться ще зо 2 млрд землян. Половина з них народиться в Африці на південь від Сахари, ще 30% у Південні та Південно-Східній Азії. Саме ці регіони, за прогнозами, найбільше страждатимуть від наслідків кліматичних змін: посух, спеки, загалом екстремальних погодних умов. “В останні 20 років сповільнюється ріст урожайності, особливо зернових, — каже Майкл Оппенгеймер, кліматолог із Пристонського університету. — У деяких регіонах врожайність узагалі перестала зростати. На мою думку, найбільша загроза від зміни клімату — це розвал продовольчих систем”.

Half a century ago, disaster loomed just as ominously. Speaking on world hunger at a Ford Foundation forum in 1959, one economist said, “At best, the outlook for decades ahead is bleak; at worst - terrible". 9 years later, Paul Ehrlich, the author of the bestseller The Population Bomb, predicted that in the 1970s and 1980s, famine would kill hundreds of millions of people, especially in India.

But these gloomy predictions were thwarted by the Green Revolution, which transformed agricultural production on a global scale, especially wheat and rice cultivation. With the help of breeding, the American biologist Norman Borlaug brought out a dwarf variety of wheat, which spends most of its energy on the development of edible grains, and not on long, inedible stalks. The result is a higher yield per hectare. Similar work at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines has greatly improved the yield of this grain crop that feeds half the world.

From the 1960s to the 1990s, rice and wheat yields in Asia doubled. And while the continent's population increased by 60%, grain prices fell, so the average Asian began consuming almost a third more calories, and the proportion of the population below the poverty line halved. When Borlaug received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, it was said about him: "More than anyone else in this century, he helped provide bread to a hungry world."

To continue in the same vein from now until 2050, we will need another green revolution. There are two opposing opinions about what it should be. One insists on high technologies with the continuation of selection work, following Borlaug, but with modern genetic engineering methods. "The next green revolution will improve the tools of the old," says Robert Fraley, chief technologist at Monsanto and laureate of the prestigious 2013 World Food Prize. Scientists can now isolate and manipulate a vast array of plant genes that will make plants resistant to disease or drought, he said. Therefore, agriculture will become more productive and adaptive.

The signature technology of this approach (which has brought Monsanto both success and criticism) is genetically modified crops. They first appeared in the 1900s, have taken root in 28 countries and are now grown on 11% of the arable land of the planet, in particular on half of all cultivated areas in the United States. About 90% of the corn, cotton and soybeans in this country are genetically modified. Americans have been consuming products from GM crops for almost 20 years. But in Europe and a large part of African countries, disputes over the safety and consequences of GMOs for ecology mostly prohibit their use.

Proponents of GMOs (like Fraley) claim that such crops have prevented billions of dollars in losses in the US alone and are actually good for the environment. A recent study by the USDA found that pesticide use on corn crops was reduced by 90% after switching to Bt, a variety modified with genes from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis that repel corn moths and other pests. Reports from China indicate that in those provinces where genetically modified cotton is grown, there are fewer harmful insects and more ladybugs and other beneficial insects.

The individual GM crops that Fraley created at Monsanto proved profitable for the company and many farmers, but did little to convince society to accept high technology in agriculture. Monsanto has developed genetically modified Roundup Ready crop varieties resistant to the Roundup herbicides produced by the same company. This means farmers can safely spray their fields with herbicides without the risk of destroying their corn, cotton or soybean crops. According to the terms of the contract with Monsanto, they are not allowed to leave the seeds of the next crop, but must buy new patented material of this company every year.

Although there is no conclusive evidence that Roundup herbicides or Roundup Ready varieties are harmful, advocates of alternative agricultural development see expensive GM seeds as too costly an investment in an inefficient system. In their opinion, modern agriculture already uses too many synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Not only are they unaffordable for small farmers like Juma. They also pollute the land, water, and air. Synthetic fertilizers are produced from organic fuel and after being applied to the fields, they themselves become a powerful source of greenhouse gases.

Monsanto is not the only organization convinced that modern plant genetics can help solve the food crisis. Glenn Gregorio, a geneticist at the International Rice Research Institute, deals with the same rice that started the green revolution in Asia.

"Here's the miracle rice, IR8," says Gregorio, pausing at an emerald patch where the thick rice reaches almost to the waist. Roosters are crowing somewhere far away; herons whiten against the background of lush greenery; the water on the rice checks turns into silver. The Rice Institute was founded by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations in 1960 as a non-profit organization. After 2 years, phytopathologist Peter Jennings started a series of breeding experiments. The experimental material consisted of 10,000 varieties of rice seeds. An eighth hybrid—between a dwarf variety from Taiwan and a taller one from Indonesia—produced a fast-growing, high-yielding variety, later named IR8 (India Rice 8) for its role in preventing famine in the subcontinent.

Every year, the institute offers dozens of new modifications; about a thousand of them have been planted in different parts of the world since the 1960s. Typically, productivity increases by only 1% per year. "We want to raise this figure to 2%," says Gregorio. The rate at which the Earth's population is growing is currently 1.14% per year, and by 2050, it is projected to slow to 0.5%.

For decades, the Rice Institute has been working on improving traditional varieties that are sown in waterlogged fields. Recently, he has paid special attention to climate change. Scientists are now offering drought-resistant varieties, suitable for sowing in dry fields, which will have enough rainfall - like corn or wheat. There is also a salt-resistant variety for countries like Bangladesh, where rising sea levels are poisoning the land. "Farmers don't realize that salt water is getting into their fields," Gregorio explains. — When the water tastes salty, the plants die.

Only a few varieties of rice that the institute has created are genetically modified in the classic sense, that is, they contain a gene transplanted from other species, and none of these varieties are yet publicly available. One of them, Golden Rice, has corn genes that allow it to produce beta-carotene and thus combat the global deficiency of vitamin A. Last summer, an experimental plot planted with Golden Rice was trampled by anti-GMO activists. The institute creates genetically modified varieties only in extreme cases, director Robert Zeigler said, when it cannot find the desired property in the rice itself.

But in general, modern genetics accelerated the selection work at the institute. For decades, its breeders patiently followed the old recipe: choose plants with the desired trait, cross-pollinate, wait for the offspring to reach maturity, select the best representatives, repeat everything again. Now there is an alternative to this painstaking process. In 2004, an international consortium of scientists deciphered the rice genome, which consists of approximately 40,000 individual genes. Since then, researchers all over the world know precisely those genes that determine valuable properties and can be directly selected.

For example, in 2006, plant pathologist Pamela Ronald from the University of California at Davis isolated a gene called sub1 from an East Indian rice variety. Now, due to the low yield, it is not grown much, but this variety has one special feature: it can survive 2 weeks under water. Other varieties die, as a rule, in 3 days.

Researchers at the Rice Institute cross-pollinated a variety with the sub1 gene with the high-yielding and tasty Swarna variety, popular in India and Bangladesh. They then tested the DNA to see which seedlings had inherited the sub1 gene. This technology, known as marker selection, is more accurate and saves time. Scientists did not have to plant and grow seedlings, and then fill them with water for 2 weeks and wait to see which of them will survive.

This new flood-resistant rice variety, called Svarna-sub1, is being planted by about 4 million farmers in Asia, where floods destroy more than 20 million hectares of rice every year. According to a recent study, farmers in 128 villages in the Indian state of Orissa on the shores of the Bay of Bengal began to receive a quarter higher harvest. The poorest farmers benefited the most from this.

"In India, the lowest castes get the worst shares, and the worst lands in the state of Orissa are often flooded," says Zeigler. — Therefore, here the product of modern biotechnology, resistant to rice flooding, brought the most benefit to the poor among the poor - the untouchables. A fantastic story, as far as I'm concerned."

The institute's most ambitious project is to try to fundamentally change rice and, perhaps, dramatically increase its yield. Rice, wheat, and many other plants use C3 photosynthesis (named for the three-carbon compound they release when they absorb sunlight). Corn, sugar cane and some other plants use C4 photosynthesis. Such crops require significantly less water and nitrogen than crops with C3 photosynthesis and "typically have 50 percent higher yields," says William Paul Quick of the Rice Institute. He wants to turn rice into a crop with C4 photosynthesis by manipulating the plant's own genes.

Photosynthesis of type C4, in contrast to the water resistance of the sub1 variety, is determined not by one, but by a set of genes, which greatly complicates the task. On the other hand, says Quick, "it has arisen by itself 62 times over the course of evolution, so it shouldn't be that hard to do." By inactivating gene by gene, Kviv and his colleagues systematically identify all the genes responsible for photosynthesis in the small, fast-growing cereal Setaria viridis, which is characterized by C4-type photosynthesis. So far, all the genes found are also in plants with C3 photosynthesis. They just work differently.

Quick and his colleagues hope to be able to activate them in rice. "We think it will take at least 15 years," says the researcher. "Now it's the fourth year." If all goes well, the same methods will help to increase the yield of potatoes, wheat and other plants with C3 photosynthesis. This would be an unprecedented breakthrough in food security; theoretically, the yield would increase by 50%.

Such prospects made Zeigler a passionate champion of biotechnology. The gray-bearded, good-natured Zeigler calls himself a "given leftist" and at the same time believes that in the public debate about genetically modified crops, the sinful and the righteous have been mixed together. "When I started working in the 1960s, many people went into genetic engineering because we hoped to bring a lot of benefit to the world," he says. — We thought: what fantastic tools we have!”

What approach to agriculture will suit farmers in Tropical Africa? According to geneticist Nigel Taylor of the Donald Danforth Botanical Research Center in St. Louis, Missouri, the brown spot virus is now poised to cause another surge in famine. "In the last 5-10 years, it has reached epidemic proportions, and the situation is getting worse," he says. — As the temperature rises, the range of whiteflies increases. The spread of this disease virus in central Africa is worrying, and if it infects huge areas of cassava in West Africa, it promises a serious food security crisis.

Taylor and other scientists have just begun work on genetically modified varieties of cassava resistant to brown spot virus. Taylor is conducting field trials with Ugandan scientists, and another is being prepared in Kenya. But only 4 African countries - Egypt, Sudan, South Africa and Burkina Faso - currently allow the commercial cultivation of genetically modified crops.

In Africa, as everywhere, people are afraid of GMOs, although science sees very little reason for fear. The prevailing argument is that high-tech plant varieties are not a panacea, and perhaps not even what African farmers need. Even in the US, some farmers have difficulties with them.

For example, one scientific paper documented an unfortunate trend: the western corn beetle is developing resistance to bacterial toxins contained in Bt corn. "I was surprised when I saw the data, because I knew what it meant: the technology was starting to fail," says Aaron Gassmann, an entomologist at Iowa State University and a co-author of the paper. One of the problems, he said, is that farmers are not complying with the official requirement to plant "storage" fields with "regular" corn, which slows the spread of resistant genes, acting as islands of safety for the beetles, which remain vulnerable to Bt toxins.

Genetically modified crops are not grown in Tanzania. But some farmers are beginning to realize that a simple, low-tech solution—polyculture—is one of the best ways to control pests. Tanzania now ranks fourth in the world in terms of the number of certified organic farms. Part of the credit goes to a young woman named Janet Maro.

Maro grew up on a farm near Kalimanjaro and was the fifth of eight children. In 1009, while still studying at the Sokoine Agricultural University in Morogoro, she helped organize the non-profit organization "Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania (SAT)". Since then, Maro and her small team have been teaching local farmers about organic farming techniques. SAT is currently assisted by the Swiss organization Biovision, headed by Hans Herren.

Morogoro lies approximately 160 km west of Dar es Salaam, at the foot of the Uluguru Mountains. "Representatives of state agricultural institutions do not come here," she says. The mountain slopes, abundantly watered by rains from the Indian Ocean, are still covered with dense forests. But they are increasingly being cleared for fields by representatives of the Luguru ethnic group.

Every half kilometer you can meet women walking alone or in small groups with baskets of cassava, papaya or bananas on their heads. Women are not just carriers. Among the Lugur, ownership of land is passed down through the female line. "If a woman doesn't like a man, she shows him the door," says Maro.

She stops in front of a one-room brick house with partially plastered walls and a corrugated iron roof. Khabija Kibwana, a tall woman in a short-sleeved white shirt with a belt wrapped around her waist invites her to sit on the porch.

Unlike farmers from Bogamoyo, Kibwana and her neighbors grow a variety of crops. Now it's the mason of bananas, avocados and passion fruit. Carrots, spinach and other vegetables will soon be planted, all for the local market. Such a mixture allows you to insure yourself in case something does not give birth, and also helps to fight pests. Local farmers are learning the strategy by planting rows of wild sunflowers, Tithonia diversifolia, which are favored by whiteflies, to lure the insects away from their cassava crops. Using compost instead of synthetic fertilizers improved the soil so much that one farmer, Pius Paulini, doubled his spinach yield. And runoff from his fields no longer pollutes the streams that supply Morogoro with water.

Probably, the most significant change in life after switching to organic production was freedom from debt dependence. Even with government subsidies, fertilizer and pesticides for half a hectare of field cost 500,000 Tanzanian shillings (more than $300), an exorbitant price in a country where the annual per capita income is less than $1,600. "Earlier, when we had to buy fertilizers, we didn't have any money left for our children's education," says Kibwana. Now her eldest daughter has already finished school.