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The long term goal is to spread hybrid maize across the country. One of the purported goals of this initiative is to increase food security for the people. A closer analysis shows that this is not going to be the case. If at all, the focus on hybrid maize production will result in worse food security. Additionally, there are many other problems that the promotion of hybrid maize production is certainly going to create.
The promotion of hybrid corn was aimed at supplying raw materials for the animal feed industry. It was made amply clear by USAID's Mission Director David C. Atteberry on September 12 during the multi-stakeholder meeting at Hotel Himalaya. Nepal imports 135,000 tons of corn feed annually to be consumed by the animal industry. The value of 135,000 tons of corn feed is around Rs 300 million, according to Atteberry.
This means that increasingly larger plots of land are going to be converted to produce animal feed. The conversion of corn into animal products often is very energy inefficient. For example, producing one kg of animal protein requires at least seven kg of plant-based protein.
In 2006, the Food and Agricultural Organization produced a report showing that the animal industry was one of the most environmentally destructive sectors in the world. It produces more carbon dioxide than the transportation sector. The heavy use of chemical fertilizers and poisons degrade water sources. Since Chitwan is Nepal's poultry capital and a lot of Chitwan's farmers are involved in the dairy business, we can understand their need to produce feed.
A small section of Nepal's middle class also has developed a taste for animal products. One of the consequences of the combination is that there has been an alarming rise in the use of hormones and antibiotics in poultry and milk cattle.
Production for the feed industry is going to put farmers in a very vulnerable situation. Many in Nepal do not know that over 75 per cent of corn produced in America cannot be directly consumed by humans.
Most of these corn varieties are genetically modified to cater to the specific need for the growth of animals. We do not know what specific variety of hybrid maize Monsanto is promoting in Nepal, but because these varieties are bred for animal feed industry, they are very different from what Nepali people are used to eating and what most of the Nepali farmers are used to growing.
The claim that hybrid maize gives higher yield is most often made based on wrong calculations. More often than not, open pollinated corn production and hybrid corn production entail very different farming systems. A typical cornfield in Nepal consists of beans, squash and lots of other food items as well as a lot of green grass for the animals. Hybrid corn production is often done in a field devoid of anything else. Even if various grasses grow, they are often destroyed with herbicides.
Most importantly, Nepali farmers will surely lose control over seed production. Monsanto is a business enterprise. In his response to comments on his posting about news of the USAID-Monsanto tie-up in Nepal, the US Ambassador to Nepal Scott H. DeLisi admits that much.
One Suman Sharma's comment included this:
"I have also seen the work of these giant companies who look only for profit and do not care about the surrounding and the health of people. Otherwise Nigeria, the largest exporter of natural gas, would be the richest country in the world. Unfortunately the people are very poor."In response, Ambassador DeLisi wrote:
"While all companies that sell a product have a commercial motive, many companies also have a positive development impact."In this case, the issue is greater than the commercial interest of Monsanto. One has to be totally naive to miss that in a company such as Monsanto. Let's not forget, USAID is providing financial incentives for Monsanto to come. It is spending the US taxpayers' money to do so. Here, USAID is basically creating a captive market for one of the biggest agro-chemical companies of the world - for a company that has dubious records when it comes to environmental destruction, human health and farmers' rights.
Today, Nepal is almost self-sufficient in producing maize seeds. In Chitwan and many other districts, a lot of farmers are producing open pollinated seeds. The hybrid maize promotion is sure to disrupt that self-reliance. By its very nature, farmers cannot produce corn seeds. They have to buy them every year. Self-reliance in feed might be the goal, but we will be losing total control over the seed. This will lead to a drastic decline in the seed varieties that are currently produced in open pollinated fields. Have we calculated how much the corn seed market is? Have we calculated how varied our corn seed diversity is?
Most importantly, across Nepal thousands of farmers have been generating ecologically sound, biodiverse and productive farming practices. Our real food security strategy has to be focused on promoting these, and not hybrid corn which humans cannot consume directly and which transfers control over seed from the hands of farmers to the hand of a distant corporation.
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