An interview with Dr. Geoff Hawtin by Andrew Ormerod and John Ellison at the Eden Project. (2011)
Geoff Hawtin is a consultant: research management with experience in international development and plant diversity.
He has held in his career senior leadership positions at Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Global Crop Diversity Trust, Bioversity International, International Development Research Centre and International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA)and CATIE in Costa Rica. In addition he is currently a trustee for the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew and CIAT (Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza) and advisor to International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources at the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization).
Q. How can biodiversity meet our future food needs in the face of climate change and growth of world population?
The list is quite a scary one and biodiversity has a major role to play in various ways – biodiversity itself is a huge area.
If we are talking about biodiversity in agriculture it has two major roles to play.
Diverse cropping and production systems
Diversity itself within a production system can be extremely valuable. It can be diversity of different crops, diversity of enterprises, diversity of time – as farmers have a different succession of cropping. Diversity in itself is extremely valuable, providing resilience to the system. When a diverse production system gets a shock – for example, a hurricane may take out bananas but leave the beans. Diversity and biodiversity in itself plays a major role in stabilising. There is quite a lot of evidence that mixed production systems are more productive, making a contribution to increasing production, helping to meet the needs of the world population of 9.5 billion in the next few decades.
Diversity at the genetic level
The other contribution is at the genetic level, rather than the species or the crop level. If you analyze what is in a traditional farmers crop of wheat and rice in many parts of the world, you will find many different genetic systems there, with many different genes having many different traits. It is those different genes that are at the heart of our ability to produce new varieties for the future. So that for example in situations where there are high temperatures or prolonged drought, then we can look for varieties that are resistant to these conditions.
Drought itself is a highly complex topic. We may need drought resistance at the seedling stage; we may need to couple that with heat tolerance at the flowering stage. We may need to couple that with a very short growing season to avoid drought that comes later in the season. Somehow we need to put all these traits into a particular variety to meet the needs of a farmer fifteen years from now when that variety is produced. It takes at least ten years to produce a new variety. So we are in a very complex situation. It isn’t a case of thinking – here’s a gene for drought resistance – if we put it in a variety we will have a resistant variety.
The starting point for this is trying to understand what these environments are likely to be like fifteen years from now. We need much better predictive systems, to tailor our crops to meet those environments. We are never going to be perfect in that respect so we are always going to have to have varieties that are inherently flexible to compensate for the different environments that they are going to meet in the future.
We are going to do this by looking at what crops are out there now; looking at them genetically; looking at what traits and characteristics they have. We need to model that move those genes around and move them into new varieties. We are talking about biodiversity – not just in the crop gene pool – not just in rice for example (and there are 100,000 accessions in the largest collection of rice) so you can imagine the amount of genetic variation here. Even that is likely to be small compared to what we are likely to need in the future. A lot of the genes that we need in the future are likely to be in the wild relatives of rice. Species that are growing in very different conditions, very dry conditions, very warm conditions. These may be extremely important in terms of their genes for building the varieties that we need in the future.
So there are many ways that biodiversity can help to solve these complex problems.
Q. Do you perceive that crop mixtures (mixed populations) could have a role in coping with drought and flooding?
Crop mixtures
You can have a mixture of crops, which is important; many farmers in the humid tropics will grow crops in mixtures. If you go to a typical home garden in a West African tropical country you will see say 50 different crops growing together. There are many studies that show that is a very productive way of producing crops. It’s also a very knowledge intensive system – because of the amount of knowledge required to grow all those crops well and this is very important. But a lot of that knowledge is being lost.
Variety mixtures
The other aspect is mixtures of varieties. A few years ago there was interest in multi line varieties, essentially a very similar varieties that would differ by one or two genes. That concept never took off in a formal sense. Most of the traditional farmers varieties – are highly heterogeneous, with traits having several different combinations of genes that will contribute to that. Most farmers’ varieties are mixtures and in many cases these have been shown to be more stable. They are not as high yielding as more genetically uniform varieties. That’s part of the dilemma that we face and in the future there are some trade offs that are going to be needed; productivity verses sustainability verses sustainability and resilience. Where we come out on that depends on the environments of the future. We hear a lot about increasing variability of climates as a consequence of climate change. If that is the case then actually a greater degree of heterogeneity within varieties, growing mixtures may be a very good strategy for farmers to adopt. It is unlikely to be a strategy that solves everyone’s problems but I can see many situations where mixtures in crops and mixtures in varieties can contribute to such solutions.
Q. How do you safeguard and encourage the use of local knowledge about managing diversity?
In some cases the knowledge is being lost faster than the genetic diversity itself is being lost. ‘Grandma’s’ seeds may be grown by her grandchildren, but much of the knowledge about how the seeds were used, what characteristics they had is likely to be lost. A role for gene banks should be to collect the knowledge – not just the seed material. NGO’s working with communities to set up community gene banks, should be giving equal attention to conserving the knowledge that goes with those varieties There is growing awareness about this – but it is quite difficult as a lot of the knowledge is in other languages and the gene bank curators may not know the different dialects within the area being collected. The interpretation may contain very specific uses of local words making it difficult to capture. It isn’t easy to do but there is an awareness that it needs to be done. It is a huge challenge to do something about this – exacerbated by the rate that this knowledge is being lost and this is likely to be accelerated by climate change…..
Q. What role can extension services play in this?
Extension services should be a conduit for two-way flow of information; it isn’t just a case of persuading farmers about the latest herbicide or pesticide to use. There should be a conduit back to the researchers or policy makers on what are the farmer’s real circumstances, what are their real needs and what would make a difference in their lives. The problem is that extension services around the world are in disarray. There are a few examples of traditional formal government extension services now. There is a lot of work going on looking at alternatives to traditional extension services such as FAO farm schools through to NGO’s working with rural development projects.
Q. Is there away of resurrecting traditional extension services?
There is a possibility in a few cases in investing in governments for extension services. However, I suspect most governments won’t want to use money in this way but would be more interested in novel ways of information dissemination. These can be very exciting ways of getting two way flows of information – such as the use of mobile phones (or internet with satellite connections). Mobile phones as information conduits are becoming increasingly possible across Africa to reach areas that have rarely if ever been reached by extension services. So I don’t see traditional extension service as being a major part of the answer.
Q. How can genetic resources cope with sudden changes like floods and droughts?
The solutions are linked to varieties.
One part is the mixtures idea – where for example a hurricane would take out tall plants and leave short plants; or a deep rooted crop getting water while a shallow rooted crop would not. Different ways of exploiting the environment so you would have a more resilient whole.
In terms of crops there is a lot we can be doing and there is a lot that we don’t know.
If you take something simple like drought resistance – I say simple but it isn’t. There is the ability to withstand drought at the seedling stage. Can seeds germinate at low moisture levels compared to other varieties? Is the speed of root growth faster? Are they ale to follow moisture down in the soil or not?
Leaf angle you have the different orientation of leaves. The nature of stomata (leaf pores for gaseous and water vapour exchange). Which surface of the leaf they are on, how that surface is orientated to prevailing winds? Do they fold over? Or do they curl up in the heat of the day? Do the stomata close? Are they waxy? Almost anything you can think of you can come up with 20-30 variants of it, all of which in part may play a role in withstanding heat and drought. The physiological processes, the flowering processes, the seed setting processes. They all offer tremendous opportunities for variation. Our methodologies for recognising these variations are still very crude. We tend to work at the gross level without understanding why when we subject a whole load of plants to drought those that survive must be drought resistance. And if we cross them together the offspring will be even more drought resistant. We are going to have to understand far more about what is going on within the plant, how that can that be tweaked and manipulated in different circumstances. What genes are turned on under what circumstances and begin to design plants on a much stronger physiological knowledge than we have at present.
Q. So basically you are looking at a biological tool kit to cope with sudden changes?
We are way off that. To me genetic resources are your basic raw material. So the tool kit is your knowledge of how to put this all together. And what to put together. We have some ideas of how to do this but we need some more tools in our tool kit or knowledge about this. We talk about phenotyping these days – what genes produce what results. We are beginning to scratch the surface of this and its turning out to be much more complex than we thought. The idea of one gene having one effect and another gene having another effect is changing rapidly and we are aware about combinations of genes having multiple effects and gene sequences being turned on at different times in different ways. It is a very complex. Frankly there are just not enough people working in areas that need to be strengthened. We urgently need to know how this genetic variation translates into different traits. Essentially build the traits we need and follow that back to the genes and the mechanisms for switching the genes on and off – which is absolutely critical and how we can put that all into a plant.
Q. In the face of a, the complexity of the challenge that faces us, and b, the urgency. How quickly do we need to act?
We need to act extremely urgently, partly because it takes 10-15 years to produce a new variety (8 if you take short cuts). From producing a new variety until farmers can grow it. You can’t shortcut it any more because you have to test out the material – before giving varieties to farmers. It is life – or death to them if they fail. You need to be pretty shore of what you are giving them. That’s why there is a long lead-time – so it is urgent that we start now. What ever we do now people talk about 2020 as being the target timing now. What we do today will have a direct impact at 2020 but not before.
The other urgency is the speed at which diversity is being lost. If we look at the conservation systems in place and some of the gene banking – we are not too badly off for cultivated species of major cereals and food legumes. However, a lot of the minor crops – the fruit – the vegetables the oil seed crops are very under represented. We don’t have enough – we only have a fraction of the diversity of these crops. A lot of them are more difficult and expensive to conserve. I mentioned about wild relatives and a lot of these novel traits that we are going to need. Again many wild relatives of crops are highly endangered. So it is extremely urgent.
Q. What happens if we don’t address this adequately? Given the need to produce food of sufficient diversity and given the investment to date in technologies and the issues we have just been discussing, comparing them to the value of global GDP.
It is a really a serious situation if we do nothing. You and I will not suffer too much, but we can afford to spend more for our food. Because now we are not spending more than 5-10% of our disposable income on food. But a lot of people in developing countries on $1-2 a day are spending 60-80% of their income. What does doubling food prices do to someone spending 50% of their income on food? That is a large number of people on a dollar a day a billion people.
Q. Skills and investment required?
Language skills, scientific skills. If you look today most of the investment in plant breeding is in major crops for farmers who can buy seeds every year. Very small investment in minor crops for crops for poor people who do not have much of a market value, (minor legume crops, local vegetable crops receive almost no attention at all). We need many more people with the skills for collecting and conserving this material and beginning to breed it, to understand what is in that material and how it can be tailored for the new challenges.
Trade off decision-making
In terms of trade offs – we know Southern Africa is going to become hotter and dryer. How much effort do you put into producing maize for hotter dryer systems? Or how much do you put into sorghum that grows very well under hot dry conditions and breed it to have organoleptic qualities more similar to maize?
We need to get a consensus, as we can’t do everything the money to do everything. We need to know where the priorities are – we only have relatively few breeders. We need many more with breeding skills and skills to do seed production, to do seed distribution. In addition we also need to identify where these skills need to be deployed.
Making sure facilitating exchange on a fair basis functions properly.
There is another class of issues facing lawyers and policy makers, because a lot of this is dependent on a policy environment that will encourage these things to happen. If you have got a system and policies that only encourage large scale agriculture, then the chances of addressing a lot of these issues based on diversity will be lost. Policy is extremely important, regulation is very important, we know the side effects of the number of recent conventions – less material is collected and shared for example and there is a lot of evidence that biodiversity is effected. In a world where people want greater access to new material, new genes, new varieties we want to facilitate that exchange on a fair basis. Equity issues are extremely important here and sharing benefits is extremely important. We need to ensure we have got policies and processes in place that encourage this and not what happens which is the opposite of that.
Q. Can biotechnology and traditional research systems co-exist as a means of producing solutions?
I think they have to co-exist. Genetic modification techniques are one small aspect of modern biotechnology. There are extremely powerful biotechnology techniques that do not rely on genetic modification. Just trying to identify genetic systems that are already in place in the plant and seeing how they are turned on and off. We can do an awful lot without transferring genes from a fish to a plant. But having said that there are occasions when we will want to transfer specific genes. The more extreme the environment the more we will be forced to do that. That’s just one aspect of the whole thing and many traditional approaches will be critical. I can’t imagine a situation where biotechnology is going to come up with new gene they have inserted into four or five different varieties and that is going to serve every bodies needs – that has never been the case before. It is far more likely having inserted a gene into a variety, farmers will want to cross with that and a gene may spread through a range of different plant populations. The genes may spread by farmers making crosses or by natural out crossing. I think the traditional ways farmers improve varieties will continue long into the future. I think some of the new techniques will give farmer’s greater choice and greater variation to carry on their own breeding and selection along side professional plant breeder’s work.
Q. So you see them taking part in participatory processes?
I think the two worlds have to come together much more. There are a number of cases recently when national or university based plant breeders have worked with farmers to introduce new material on to farmers fields. In some cases they have worked with farmers to make there own crosses. Essentially they have been finding ways of increasing the variability that the farmers have to work with and then to narrow them down to the particular varieties that meet the farmers needs. I think there is huge potential for that. I think when you talked about extension services, the best way of getting this new material out to farmers and to choose the material farmers want will be through these plant breeding programs. I have been involved with a project from FAO, which involves setting up a fund under the international treaty – which regulates the exchange of materials. One of the sharing of benefits of exchanging materials is going to be through the fund $116 million dollars by 2014. That money will largely go towards efforts to work with farmers to increase diversity to meet climate change and adapt their agriculture to climate change. A lot of that is foreseen as collaboration between farmers, farmers groups and NGO’s and the more formal sector.
Q. Is resolving the world’s future food requirements business as usual or do the answer lie in diversity and breeding?
The answer to the world’s food problem is not business as usual and I don’t think the answer to the problem is business only. Commercial agribusiness has a significant role to play – but we are still look at a situation where small-scale agriculture is going to be vital for a large number of people and small-scale agriculture is going to rely on diversity it always has – it always will for its resilience and high productivity. The two will be needed and hopefully will merge more. Its almost two worlds at the moment it is either or. To see some of the lessons of small scale agriculture picked up by larger commercial, some of this is being forced on them – such as the backlash against battery chickens. The call for organic foods – we are seeing big business having to adopt some of these approaches more traditionally in the small agriculture sector. Equally small-scale farmers are going to have to make use of some of the varieties of the bigger scale agriculture to survive and produce the food that is needed.
Q. How do we protect and enhance traditional skills held by men and women?
Both are important, there is a growing awareness that women are vital to agriculture, it tends to a male dominated world – particularly agricultural research and education is quite male dominated. I think there is a lot of awareness in programs of gender differentiation in production and processing systems. There is no ‘One size fits all’. In Africa women play an important part in agricultural production – the situation in the Middle East is quite different with men being the main work force………….
Q. Are there skills packages and genetic resource packages transferable if there are droughts?
One could breed varieties with water logging resistance. (Roots with pneumatophores). If we sat down and brain stormed we could think about 20 different mechanisms that we could explore to do that.
Rather than modern biotechnology where you can look across species rather than making collections of a particular crop – making collections of a particular trait. So for example you would make a collection of plants at the species and variety level that are particularly drought or flooding resistant and get the physiologists to work to find out if they are all using the same mechanism. Which of those mechanisms are most likely to operate in the species that we are interested in. Can we find some of the genes already in the plants that can be enhanced?
Q. What are your top priorities to address the issues we are discussing (water – agriculture – food)?
We need the resources to do this – that means more money and more people to do the work. One of the concerns has been the withdrawal of public funding from this area. A lot of the research being done is in private hands – they’re doing a very good job. Total resources – money – going to agriculture is as great or greater than ever.
The problem with private commercial research is the tendency towards secrecy, which I think is a greater problem than patents. The other is the nature of the work being done. If you are a commercial company making an investment it has to be into a crop which is widely grown which farmers are able and willing to pay for the seeds for it. It has to be a crop grown on a sufficient area – your market has to be big enough for it to justify your investment. Which means poor farmers crops – minor crops – perhaps becoming significant crops in the future are all getting neglected. Because of that there is a market failure. The private sector is not going to invest in that. If research is based on private investment then the time has come to be very concerned. There are signs of public investment in agriculture but it is still small. Take the World Bank for example, for several years they have been saying that they would like to invest in agriculture but countries have not been requesting this investment. It’s not the priority of countries requesting investments from the World Bank they would rather build roads or dams or schools. Part of the priority is public awareness; people need to know about this problem at the highest level of government policy makers. When sitting down with donors to talk policy it shouldn’t just be schools and roads. It is increasingly important to discuss how they are going to feed their population 20 years from now.
Q. Do food manufacturers, retailers and consumers need to respond to greater biodiversity?
Yes and no, you can build a lot of biodiversity into systems without having the diversity of the characteristics that are important to the commercial sector being affected. For example on the pest and disease spectra will change substantially with future climate change (possibly more pests in some cases possibly less in others). We are looking for varieties with novel forms of resistance. So for example gluten in wheat you can build a certain percentage of gluten important for the commercial sector into a wide range of different varieties. So variation can exist for all characteristics except for ones that are important for commercial perspective. If you are a farmer about to combine your crop you want it all to mature at the same time so you can cut through with your combine. If some are an inch taller it isn’t a problem with different genes for disease resistance it isn’t an issue. I think a lot of concerns about monocultures and genetic uniformity have resulted because that has been the easy root – it is much easier to come up with a genetically uniform variety. Regulations have an affect there too – if you register a variety for plant breeder’s rights and it is too variable chances are you are not going to produce a variety. There may be some legal issues that need to be addressed in relation to variety description. There’s no reason why diversity and commercial interests shouldn’t exist to a substantial extent.
The other side of that question is an interesting one. We are seeing in the North interest moving towards diversity of foods. If you go to the supermarkets now you will see a whole diversity of apples or potatoes with their varietal names on them. A few years ago you would see one or two only – so there is a growing interest. There is a growing understanding of what a variety is. In the North this is a luxury we can afford to pay for it. If a variety tastes nice but isn’t so productive – well we will pay a bit more for it. You cannot always take up that luxury in a developing country. If you are spending 60% of your income on food you are not going to pay more to have a nice old heirloom variety – rather something cheaper and hopefully nutritious.
Q. Is that a trend in the south of the world in that the amount of diversity consumed is falling?
It is hard to say. The largest supermarket is South African for example has as much diversity as an average supermarket in the North. Diversity still exists on small farms for those crops where there is no big commercial market. Very high degrees of uniformity are required for export crops and for major crops for processing.
Q. A vision for agriculture in the next 20 -30 years? Where would you see agriculture and farming developing?
My vision would be seeing a break down between the two worlds. The small scale the diverse – there is very little subsistence agriculture but there are a lot of farmers who grow some cash crops and some for home consumption. The traditional farming world, which is often in many parts of the world, is a myth – the happy farming family sitting underneath their orchard doesn’t really exist that way. Never the less there is a lot of knowledge and diversity and very important lessons to be learnt from the very small scale and traditional agriculture and vice versa. So to me my vision would be to see a lessoning of the excesses of the commercial sector, more diversity coming into the commercial sector, greater environmental awareness. An ability to live with nature……
Polarization and dichotomy – we have systems that compete – problem that is being missed is sense of urgency.
Q. If you have a call to action – what would it be?
How will your grand children eat – where will they get their food from? At the moment we are one of 6 billion people they will be one of 9 billion people. There will be fewer resources for producing the food there will be less water available. So unless we begin to address these issues now it isn’t just poor people who are going to suffer everyone will suffer – prices of food will sky rocket. We but particularly our children and our children’s children will have to face the consequences of this. This is not a problem that will face the third world only this will be a problem that will face everybody.
Q. Thinking about the South and the North are there lessons from the global view that can be applied to the UK?
There are many lessons to be learnt and they range from the policies that we talked about earlier. The UK needs to look very hard at its role in the EU – we are a bit of an outlier but there needs to be some sanity brought to that whole situation. If you look historically the UK was a world leader in World agriculture research in tropical agriculture – we had some of the best institutions that has largely been lost and that is terribly sad. There is a residual knowledge and good will. To what extent this can and should be revived I am not sure. But I am detecting a growing isolationist view – there is almost a glamorization of what goes on in developing countries.
Q. Impact of food insecurity on unrest?
The mass movement there and the extent that is linked to food prices are sort of unclear. I would be surprised if there wasn’t anything there. I was living in Egypt in the past when there were food riots in 1976. There was mass of people on the streets as they were spending so much of their money on bread – the price was doubling at that time. Prices are currently at their historically highest level I think this. It is difficult to show cause and effect – but there is a linkage between hungry people and rioting.
Q. Do you see there is any future in the Chinese approach of science at a village level in terms of breeding and agronomy?
You are going to need localised research increasingly with climate change – there is going to be a need to know what’s going on locally and adapt to it. Stronger local level research is not strong enough on its own. You are not at a local level going to get an injection of the big thinking. You can create a few crosses at a local level but you need international systems to access genetic resources. You need quite expensive programs to create that diversity. Local as in farmer participatory breeding is extremely important but it has to be backed up by bigger international systems.
Q How secure are genetic resources? Is it enough to have it at a local level? . Did drought, insecurity have a role to play in the luting of the gene bank in Afghanistan?
The Afghani situation was a very interesting one the gene bank in Afghanistan had storage in two separate places. In Jalalabad and Ghazni in the North. Looters came in. It wasn’t the seed/food that they wanted it was the jars – the seeds were dumped on the floor all mixed up. It was like a library of books with no titles on them. The Afghanistan looting was more of a symbol of poverty rather than food per se. I think a lot of the looting we see are linked to things that they can sell or that they can use at home that they can’t afford to buy, rather than food per se. However, clearly food has a role to play even in Japan post the Tsunami one of the big concerns was food. A doctor on the BBC was living on three spoons of rice a day – there was physically no food there – it wasn’t a case of not being able to afford it. So in post disaster situations – there are supply issues; there are quality issues; there are access issues and there are organisational issues.
Q. Is that where your gene bank in Svalbard has a role to play? In terms of the gene bank in Svalbard that’s why we created this gene bank to back up these gene banks. There have been a series of problems with gene banks over the years – Afghanistan has been one. The gene bank in Abu Ghraibin Iraq was destroyed – that wasn’t specifically targeted that was collateral damage. There was a hurricane that hit the gene bank in the Philippines and the gene bank in Rwanda was destroyed. So a gene bank is no more secure than the country or environment that it happens to be in. The idea of Svalbard was that gene banks could store cheaply and cost effectively a duplicate set of seeds that they can get back if there collection is destroyed. Svalbard is like a ‘black box’ the genetic resources are under the control of the country that put the genetic resources in.
© Andrew Ormerod 2023
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