Food, agriculture perceived low on Copenhagen agenda
Updated
With just weeks until the Copenhagen conference, 60 of the world's top agricultural scientists are urging global leaders to put crop research on the agenda at the climate change talks. A statement released yesterday by The Global Crop Diversity Trust expresses alarm at the lack of discussion about food security.
The 60 signatories warn that without significant investment, the globe will face widespread famine and food shortages in the years ahead.
Presenter: Madeleine Genner
Speaker: Ben Fargher, chief executive of Australia's National Farmers Federation
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MADELINE GENNER: Speaking at a global food summit in Rome this week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon offered a grim prediction.
BAN KI-MOON: The food crisis of today is a wakeup call for tomorrow. By 2050 our planet may be the home to 9.1 billion people, over 2 billion more than today.
MADELINE GENNER: But some of the world's leading agricultural scientists are warning that food shortages could be even more acute unless governments spend more money on crop research. In a statement released today, 60 scientists are urging the world's leaders to put crop research firmly on the agenda at Copenhagen.
The former director of the Australian Centre for Agricultural Research, Dr Bob Clements, is one of the signatories to the statement.
BOB CLEMENTS: I think what we are hoping to achieve is to get agriculture and especially food security that part of agriculture, right at the front of people's minds as they think about what might be possible in the statement that emerges from Copenhagen. And it's also about urging the parties to the meeting at Copenhagen to consider that one of the most simple risk-management things that could be done to safeguard food security which is to get on with and finish the job of conserving the world's plant biodiversity - the building blocks for prompt improvement.
MADELINE GENNER: Today's statement has been released by the Global Crop Diversity Trust. They're the organisation responsible for creating the so-called doomsday vault in Norway. The vault which opened last year is a global seed bank, designed to protect the world's seeds from disaster; be it climate change, a nuclear attack or an earthquake. Bob Clements says the creation of the seed vault is an important first step but that a lot more research and money is required.
BOB CLEMENTS: What is needed is an effort by many countries including Australia to do a better job of doing their bit for the global effort.
MADELINE GENNER: When we're talking about crop diversity and crop research, I guess we're talking about things like developing seeds that are more drought resistant and those kind of things, is that correct?
BOB CLEMENTS: That would be one of the uses of this crop germplasm; that would be a key use. It's actually quite a bit step to go from putting the seeds in a vault and getting out the specific genes that you want and putting them into a variety that's going to be better adapted to heat or drought or something like that. That's quite a big step.
MADELINE GENNER: And the National Farmers Federation is also calling on the Australian Government to spend more on crop research. CEO Ben Fargher says that dramatic climate change could impact on all Australian crops. He says the Government needs to act now.
BEN FARGHER: We do have a good R&D system in Australia, not only around grains but around all our major commodities but it is under pressure and at a time when we do need new genetics, new varieties, new ways to grow crops with less water, we're very concerned about that pressure that is on our domestic system.
MADELINE GENNER: And why is it facing that pressure? Is it simply a funding issue?
BEN FARGHER: Well funding's a bit part of it and we've seen cuts in this year's Federal Budget to agricultural R&D. We've seen state governments pulling out of agricultural research and development, we assume because of fiscal pressure. And the challenge for us is that compared to issues like carbon and water, research and development is not always a sexy issue, it's not always on the top of people's list but it's the type of issue that you wake up in five, 10, 15 years time, wonder why your productivity rates have dropped right off, and wonder why you've lost such a good system that you once had and we want to make sure for a manifest point of view that that does not happen in Australia.
