Starving Research

This is a stark example of the many problems that are coming to light in the world8217;s agricultural system. Experts say that during the food surpluses of recent decades, governments and development agencies lost focus on the importance of helping poor countries improve their agriculture.

The budgets of institutions that delivered the world from famine in the 1970s, including the rice institute, have stagnated or fallen, even as the problems they were trying to solve became harder.

8220;People felt that the world food crisis was solved, that food security was no longer an issue, and it really fell off the agenda,8221; said Robert S. Zeigler, the director-general of the rice institute.

Vital research programmes have been slashed. At the rice institute, scientists have identified 14 genetic traits that could help rice plants survive the plant hopper, which sucks the juices out of young plants while infecting them with viruses. But the scientists have had no money to breed these traits into the world8217;s most widely used rice varieties.

The institute is the world8217;s main repository of rice seeds as well as genetic and other information about rice, the crop that feeds nearly half the world8217;s people.

But nowadays at the International Rice Research Institute, greenhouses have peeling paint and holes in their screens and walls. Hallways are dotted with empty offices. In the 1980s, the institute employed five entomologists, or insect experts, overseeing a staff of 200. Now it has one entomologist with a staff of eight.

Agricultural experts have complained about similar troubles plaguing the 13 other centres in Asia, Africa and Latin America that worked with the rice institute on improving crop productivity in poor countries and warned of the risks.

Now, a reckoning is at hand. Growth of the global food supply has slowed even as the population has continued to increase, and as economic growth is giving millions of poor people the money to buy more food.

With demand beginning to outstrip supply, prices have soared, and food riots have erupted that have undermined the stability of foreign governments. World leaders are scrambling to respond. On May 1, President Bush asked Congress for an extra 770 million to pay for food aid and to help farmers improve their productivity.

But cuts in agricultural research continue. The biggest cutbacks have come in donations to agriculture in poor countries from the governments of wealthy countries and in loans from development institutions that the wealthy governments control, like the World Bank. Such projects include not only research on pests and crops but also programs to help farmers adopt improved methods in their fields.

In the 1960s, population growth was far outrunning food production, threatening famine in many poor countries. But then wealthier nations joined forces with the poor countries to improve crop yields, resulting in a Green Revolution that ended the threat of starvation by the 1980s 8212; production was abundant, prices fell.

As the world lost its focus on crops, the budgets of the research centres suffered heavy cuts. Spending fell on the laborious plant-breeding programs needed to improve crop productivity.

As these trends played out, the stage was being set for a food emergency. After 1990, food8217;s growth rate fell below population growth, according to a report by Ronald Trostle, a researcher at the Agriculture Department. Around 2004, the world economy began growing more quickly, about 5 percent a year. So as the food supply was lagging, millions of people were gaining the money to improve their diets.

The world began to use more grain than it was producing, cutting into reserves, and prices started rising. Early this year, as stocks fell to perilous levels, international grain prices doubled or even tripled, threatening as many as 100 million people with malnutrition.

At the World Bank, agricultural financing is set to double for programmes in Africa. After President Bush8217;s request to Congress, other wealthy countries are joining the United States in increasing their support.

But, as the case of the brown plant hopper shows, there will be no quick fix for the years of neglect.

If money is found, the rice institute could take four to seven years to counter the hopper problem. In the meantime, the hoppers have become a growing threat. China, the world8217;s biggest rice producer, announced on May 7 that it was struggling to control the rapid spread of the insects there. A plant hopper outbreak can destroy 20 per cent of a harvest; China is trying to hold losses to five per cent in affected fields.