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“There are some interesting hints and nods in the right direction, including a focus on crop diversity and nutrition, indigenous knowledge, and neglected crops,” said Bill Moseley, a professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. said. He conducts research on agricultural programs with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank. “What’s really important is to think about poor farmers, what their constraints are, and how do we develop something that really works for them.”
Food has long been part of the US foreign policy arsenal.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S.-led Green Revolution focused on producing more food, specifically corn, wheat, and rice, using fertilizers, pesticides, and hybrid seeds. Ta. Corn yields, for example, have soared thanks to investments in plant breeding. Maize became the main food grain in many parts of southern and eastern Africa, while export cash crops such as cotton and tobacco became popular in some areas.
A few countries came to monopolize grain production, and a few grains, such as wheat, rice, and corn, came to dominate the world’s diet. Although the Green Revolution is credited with providing more calories, it did little to ensure a diverse and nutritious diet.
“Many countries, including many in sub-Saharan Africa, have become dependent on imports for these staple foods over the past 50 years, which has led to changes in people’s diets and the development of traditions that suit the local ecology. “There has been less focus on sustainable food crops,” said Jennifer Knapp, a professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and a member of the nonprofit International Expert Panel on Sustainable Food Systems. .
Fowler was critical of the expansion of hybrid seeds and the associated industrial farming system. In a co-authored book with Canadian environmental activist Pat Mooney, he writes that commercial hybrid seeds have changed traditional farming systems, but not for the better. In global negotiations, he opposed the US-led move towards patent seeding. (Companies that patent certain seeds make money by selling those seeds each year, subverting the traditional system in which farmers save each year’s harvest for next year’s sowing. Masu.)
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