From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

3 POVERTY AND WEALTH LIVING OFF THE LANDRecent and incipient waves of technological change pose additionalthreats and opportunities. For example, nanotechnology (the manipulationof matter on the scale of atoms or molecules) could produce apetroleum-based, stain-resistant substitute for cotton, which wouldhave cataclysmic implications for the ten million small farmers inWest Africa who grow cotton for a living. 48 On the other hand, theUniversity of Stavanger,Norway,has developed a nanoporous membranethat can prevent water loss from soil and regulate soil temperature inthe face of extreme weather. 49Biotechnology, and in particular the introduction of geneticallymodified seeds for crops such as maize, canola, soybean, and cotton,has attracted the most controversy. Supporters of GM technologyclaim it will create seeds geared to poor people’s needs. ‘Golden Rice’,a GM variety engineered to remedy the vitamin A deficiency thatafflicts hundreds of thousands of children with blindness, is perhapsthe best-known example. GM also promises crops appropriate fordifficult geographies and climates, for example drought-resistantvarieties that could play a role in adapting to climate change.These optimistic claims are disputed, not least because suchwarm words are not matched by deeds: the vast majority of GM cropshave been genetically engineered to meet the needs of large-scalefarms, for instance in reducing herbicide or insectide use andminimising the need for labour. The only major exception to date isinsect-resistant Bt cotton, grown by some nine million small farmersin China and India. 50 Although transgenic maize is being grown inSouth Africa and the Philippines, there is no serious investment in thefive most important semi-arid tropical crops – sorghum, pearl millet,pigeon pea, chickpea, and groundnut – which are grown mainly bysmall farmers.An alternative route to technological adaptation could be throughsustainable agriculture (see Box 3.2). Attempting to marry the best ofold and new farming technologies, the sustainable approach seeks tointegrate natural biological and ecological processes, minimise theuse of non-renewable inputs, and make productive use of farmers’knowledge and skills and their capacity to work together. The mostcomprehensive survey to date puts the number of farmers involved intransitions towards sustainable agriculture at 12.6 million, between129