Vietnam fights to stay afloat in sudden deluge of aid dollars
NGOs encourage Vietnamese counterparts
Formula versus mother's milk: the boycott battle continues
The forest sinister: researchers sound an alarm at Chernobyl
Taiwan farmers find a little goes a long way
The enemy of my enemy is my friend: OAU pits wasps against stem borers
Climbing for the top in Rwanda
Devaluation of the CFA franc: a shudder of upheaval in west Africa
Raining stones: Chiapas rebels fight for agrarian reform
FAO in action
Edited by Kate Dunn
The "B-52s of foreign aid" are carpet-bombing Vietnam with billions of dollars as international donors and lenders fight for a foothold in the most promising agricultural economy in Southeast Asia. The Ho Chi Minh Trail is metamorphosing into Capitalist Way, and the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Japanese, Australians, French and Scandanavians are all determined their signposts should lead the country in its new direction,
As foreign experts and foreign exchange flood into Hanoi, hopes are high. But will the dikes hold? The country has been cut off for decades from most international development efforts, first by war and later because of the U.S. economic embargo, only recently lifted - and there are those who believe its earlier isolation from lending agencies may have been a blessing in disguise.
In the late 1980s, crippled by food shortages and economic decline, Vietnam launched its policy of economic renewal, known as doi moi. The country's Marxist-inspired planned economy was gradually dumped as leaders opted for a "socialist-oriented market economy." Vietnam reformed its banking system and stimulated private farming and trade. Foreign governments cheered, but the U.S. watched with concern as other countries flocked to Vietnam and started snapping up all the good positions in aid and business propositions. Finally in January the new Clinton administration, backed by a Senate resolution, said it was time to end the embargo. Americans began pouring in, scrambling to catch up.
By November 1993, 23 countries and 17 international institutions had pledged over US$1.86 billion in grants and soft loans. Leading the pack were the Manila-based Asian Development Bank, which has promised US$1 billion, the World Bank, with $328.5 million in soft loans, and Japan, which has earmarked; $560 million for Vietnam. But is such "help" necessarily a good thing?
"It is the same story all over again," complains a young Australian economist who has worked in Vietnam for more than two years. "The Asian Development Bank and the World Bank will dump more money in this country than it can absorb. Some good projects will be done, but badly planned ones will also be funded because of donor pressures. Donors ask what the Vietnamese priorities are, but they do not really listen. They turn around and do something else better tied to their own commercial interests."
"Donors are competing for projects," complains a United Nations employee. "Everyone wants to get the high profile ones such as repairing Highway One (the country's main north-south road) or training top policy-makers. Few want to train local officials, even though it is a Vietnamese priority. Donors are all into policy-making. It is the new fashion."
Spared for 25 years
The past decades of isolation meant "Vietnam was spared 25 years of environmentally warped development projects and ill-advised loans," said one Hanoi-based economist working for an international agency. "We know better now. Vietnam will benefit from the lessons learned elsewhere."
Is there a Vo Vietnam (Vietnamese way) to develop? Will this country, with 80 per cent of its economy and people still on the farm, succeed in handling the powerful network of international organizations that have left other countries sinking in the shifting sands of debt and structural adjustment programs?
Vietnamese wonder whether they should borrow money for social such as education for this little girl
Vietnam's economy grew by 8.3 per cent in 1992 and seven per cent in 1993; the government managed to reduce inflation from a spiralling 700 per cent in 1986 to seven per cent in 1993. In just five years, Vietnam has gone from having to import hundreds of tons of rice, to being the world's third largest rice exporter (see Ceres No. 146).
With that record, does the post-socialist government need advice from outsiders? Most experts agree on the need for international loans used for rehabilitation of the transportation network. The poor state of most roads and ports slows down movement of agricultural products and thus the speed of economic growth. But there consensus stops.
What are the other priorities? "It doesn't help that the Vietnamese do not have a common view of the country's development," said a technical adviser to the World Bank. "There's a maze of interest groups in Vietnam: provincial powers, political factions, local interests. Everyone agrees agriculture and food processing must spearhead development, but the rural interests are under-represented in the policy-making debate."
Ray Mallon, a senior economist with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), remains optimistic. The Vietnamese leadership, he says, has closely studied the borrowing experiences of countries like Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. They've learned their lesson. Grants will be reserved for social spending on education and health. Loans will be used to build "economic infrastructure" such as roads, telecommunication and water systems, power plants, etc. The State Planning Committee (SPC), which is responsible for coordination of all foreign aid, chose this route so "loans will help improve production capacity and lead to an improvement of domestic revenues through taxation," said Vo Hong Phuc, SPC vice-chairman. "That money will then be applied to sectors such as education and health."
Theory transgressed
That's the theory, which has already been transgressed: a US$70 million soft loan from the World Bank will be used for primary education. While schools are social infrastructure which ensure a better-skilled work force and increase tax revenues over the long term, the fear is the money will be spent for foreign advice on curriculum development. "Sure they will build new schools in impoverished areas but those schools will create recurrent spending for new teachers," said a disgusted British expert. "The government will have to spend more and the increase in tax revenues will come too late to help repay the loans. Debts will mount."
"The Vietnamese attitude right now is the more loans the better," says Adam McCarthy, an economist based in Hanoi. "But those loans will have to be repaid, and they will require a 10-30 per cent counterpart fund (Vietnam's contribution). Where will they find the money?"
In the Vietnamese dance between capitalism and socialism, sometimes the steps get confused. For example, the government asked the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to finance construction of a glucose factory for the Ministry of Health. Vietnamese hospitals badly need glucose solution and the project is on the government's priority list. JICA rejected the proposal because, true to the entrepreneurial spirit of the times, the factory would have also produced sweets for commercial sale, with revenues to go to the cash-strapped health ministry. "We need to better understand when donors want us to use market rules and when they do not," commented one tired Vietnamese planner.
Avoiding waste and corruption is the toughest challenge faced by Vietnamese loan managers. While foreign advisers sleep in US$200 per night hotel rooms, government employees rarely earn more than a 10th of that amount in a month's work. The government is clearly determined to set examples of how not to behave in the new order. Late in February, former Minister of Energy Vu Ngoc Hai and other officials were sentenced to three to five years in jail after some fancy financial footwork was used in moving 4 000 tons of steel destined for use in a $500 million north-south power line. A profit of $300 000 was made in the suspicious transactions.
There is fear the government cannot cope with the proliferation of aid projects. The flow of funds is not as quick as some would have it. "Our present ability to disburse money is very limited," admits UNDP foreign aid coordinator Andrew Bartlett, who works closely with the Vietnamese State Planning Committee. While that may frustrate donors, most Hanoi-based development workers prefer a gradual disbursement of loans to a flood. "If all the construction projects start at the same time, the price of cement and of design engineers will go sky high," warned an economist. "Private investors will suffer."
Duong Duc Ung, SPC's director of foreign economic relations, is confident in his staff's ability to handle these problems. "The Vietnamese are hard-working and learn fast. In Comparison with some other countries, our debt is small.
"The real question is our capacity to repay. It is not very big."
SPC experts are trying to estimate that capacity. Some say Vietnam can absorb $500-600 million/year; others suggest $1 billion. "Our objective is to keep the debt within safe limits," said Ung.
Jealousy breeds secrecy, as various levels of government in different regions keep quiet about money and plans for it, out of fear another arm of government will try to control it or take it away. "SPC wants to control the money instead of being a policy-maker and focal point for information," laments a foreign economist advising the Vietnamese authorities. "We are trying to convince them to supervise the process, not control it. If they attempt control, they will create a bottleneck. If they fail, they will lose credibility. In either case, it's bad news."
"If they went any faster the place would burst," said Andrew Bartlett. Most ministries were not set up to do the work they are now doing. Organizational charts are often two years old and few departments do what the chart indicates. "The people I work with have no job description," said Bartlett. "If we start writing rule books, the ones who are good at problem solving and who are getting the job done, will be stifled. But that is not easy to explain to the World Bank board of directors."
Carole Beaulieu
More than 150 non-governmental organizations are active in Vietnam today, and their numbers keep increasing. Close to half - despite the earlier years of war and economic embargo - are American-based. "I cannot keep track of all the new arrivals," says Mary Etherton, director of Hanoi's NGO Resource Centre.
Opened early in 1993, the Resource Centre keeps a database of all NGOs working in Vietnam, the type of projects in which they're involved, and the provinces in which they're working. "This way we can stop reinventing the wheel," hopes Etherton, "and stop over-aiding some provinces while others get no aid at all."
With the arrival of the "big players" in development - the Asian Development Bank, which has promised US$1 billion between now and 1995, and the World Bank, which is supplying some $328.5 million in soft loans - many small humanitarian organizations worry Vietnam is about to exchange the "top-down" approach of its past communist command-economy for another kind of top-down approach, the one favored by heavy-handed multilateral agencies. On the other hand, the arrival of the big development guns is something of a relief. "We do not usually get involved in building bridges," said Etherton, explaining the NGOs got involved in restoring infrastructure "because no one else was. Now we are going back to our more normal role of working at grassroots level. That is where development truly begins." "Normal role" will mean, among other things, supporting the emergence of local Vietnamese NGOs. There are presently few organizations in Vietnam that could be called NGOs. According to PACCOM (the Hanoi-based government agency supervising foreign NGOs), there are no local NGOs!
They do exist, however, engaged mainly in research and humanitarian work and vaguely attached to hospitals, ministries or universities. But PACCOM is not encouraging them because it wants to defend its turf and fears an explosion of small, uncontrollable organizations. Meanwhile, foreign NGOs say they will be needed more than ever in the post-communist era: "As the state withdraws from welfare and the social safety net crumbles, more such organizations are bound to sprout up," said one Hanoi NGO worker.
C.B.
"I was utterly shocked to see the City Society section of the New Straits Times (newspaper) portraying numerous medical doctors being entertained to an 'evening of fine food, good entertainment' by the Japan-based Snow Brand Milk Products Co. Snow produces only infant formula and follow-up with milk powder, both of which are totally unnecessary for the majority of babies... These doctors must be really naive if they thought that Snow did not have an ulterior motive for paying such ah expensive dinner."
- from a letter in the monthly Malaysian newspaper Utusan Konsumer, January 1994
Photo ACC/SCN, courtesy of Children's Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan
This picture tells two stories: of the often fatal consequences of bottle-feeding, and more profoundly, about the ages-old bias in favor of boys. The child with the bottle is a girl. She died the day after this photo was taken. Her twin brother was breast-fed. The woman's mother-in-law said the young mother should breast-feed only the boy, as she would not have milk for two. But almost certainly she could have fed both children herself, because the process of suckling induces milk production. "Use my picture if it will help," the mother told UNICEF. "I don't want other, people to make the same mistake"
International Breast-feeding Week falls each year in August, an annual milestone in the fight to promote the safest, healthiest way of feeding babies - yet the United Nations Children's Fund estimates more than 1.5 million children still die each year of diarrhea caused by ingestion of artificial baby formula prepared at home with tainted water.
That's why the international boycott of products made by Nestle S.A. - the Swiss corporate giant that controls Half the world market for breast-milk substitutes - was reinstated in 1988, and continues today. In the early 1980s, the company had agreed to alter its marketing practices as demanded by advocates of breast-feeding, and the boycott was lifted. But church groups and organizations concerned with family health believe makers of breast-milk substitutes, despite promises, have failed to end questionable promotions of such products in poor parts of the world.
In countries like Haiti, the voices of the boycott are hushed.
In the town of St. Marc, between Port-au-Prince and Gonaives, the cobweb-veiled shelves in a corner-shop are empty, thanks to the economic embargo brought on by the military coup of September 1991. Empty, that is, except for seven brands of infant formula and weaning foods. "Perhaps the formula was part of a shipment of humanitarian aid," said Lora Iannotti, who visited Haiti in March 1993 as part of an American-Haitian exchange group, Hands Together. The store shelves were stocked with Enfamil, Mamex, SMA White Lilly Blanco, Similex, Wyeth, Carnation, and Nextrum. Aid shipment or not, it wasn't offered free.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, yet infant formula is widely used as a supplement or alternative to breast-feeding. According to child welfare advocates, the problems with bottle-feeding include the fact that:
· a woman's body turns off its supply of natural milk if demand is not constant. Many women begin bottle-feeding because they are given free or inexpensive samples of bottled formula to get them started; once their own milk dries up, they find they've also run out of the manufacturer's free supplies;· many women either don't know how to prepare the formula and bottles using a proper sterile procedure, or cannot afford the time and energy to do so. As well, too many impoverished mothers water down the formula to make it go further, or turn to cheaper cow's milk, which is inappropriate for babies. The child ends up dangerously malnourished and often sick with deadly gastrointestinal disease.
The chief benefits of mother's milk are that it is an assuredly clean source of food, and contains the perfect nutrients for optimum development of the nervous system as well as the mother's antibodies to disease, which boost the child's immune system. Breast-feeding encourages the emotional bond between mother and child. There is some evidence breast-feeding reduces the incidence of breast cancer - and lactation is a form of birth control, often the only form available in parts of the Third World.
Haiti is just one example of the many countries in which parents and babies can ill afford to forgo the benefits of breast-feeding. UNICEF reports 51 per cent of Haitian children aged 24 to 59 months suffer from stunting, and 37 per cent of Children aged four years old and younger are underweight. Breast-feeding would give Haitian babies a head start on life.
Billboard persuasion
Yet, on billboards and on American television programs seen even in the slums of Haiti, marketing campaigns by baby formula manufacturers continue to persuade mothers to bottle-feed.
Do advertising and other promotions of the formula deserve the blame for the negative view of breast-feeding in so many societies around the world? The question is moot: breast-feeding advocates say the important thing is to re-educate women to trust their bodies to feed their babies - and to ignore contrary information from advertisers and society in general.
Some women don't breast-feed at all because they incorrectly think they will gain weight Others equate bottle formula with prestige or don't trust their bodies to produce enough milk. Many women, rich and poor, work long hours and can't spend the necessary time to breast-feed a baby. In the developed world in particular, breast-feeding is often disparaged as primitive.
In 70 countries, breast-feeding advocates continue their boycott as a crusade against Nestlé's baby formula promotions, which they say discourage breast-feeding and thus are a major cause of high infant mortality related to unsafe and inadequate bottle-feeding.
Boycott advocates face daunting obstacles: an entrenched baby formula industry with strong links to the medical community; governments unwilling to inhibit companies' freedom to market products; and mothers' belief in manufacturers' claims that formula-fed babies are healthier and happier. Meanwhile, scant information on the benefits of breast-feeding reach beyond well-developed countries.
The boycott influenced the 1981 International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes passed by WHO'S World Health Assembly, which recommends countries limit marketing and distribution of breast-milk substitutes. Of 118 countries in the assembly, only the United States refused to back the code, on grounds it ran counter to free market philosophy.
The boycott has changed the behavior of some companies, heightened public awareness about the benefits of breast-feeding and slowly pressured governments and health organizations to push for legislation to halt marketing the formula to pregnant women who can least afford it.
Nestlé remains a target because it is the biggest player in the market and because, critics say, it is the company most often cited in violations of the code. Nestlé officials contend they actively acknowledge breast-feeding is the best option for infants, but point out not all mothers want to breast-feed, and some are not able.
"We were the first company to step advertising" in countries that have made the code law, said Nestle spokesperson Mike Garrote in an interview from Lausanne, Switzerland.
While some companies have stopped directly advertising to mothers, they still carry out questionable promotions with those who influence mothers. Typically, companies deploy hundreds of sales representatives who visit hospitals and doctors' offices, dispensing free samples, information packs, and promotional gifts. When a doctor or hospital gives a mother a sample, she is likely to stick with that brand.
The code permits donations or concessionary sales of infant formula for distribution to infants who cannot be breast-fed, but says the formula should not be used to promote sales. Boycott advocates accuse Nestle and other multinationals of having failed to live up to their promise to end all free and low-cost supplies to hospitals in developing countries by 1993.
Although it's difficult to measure breast-feeding trends worldwide, studies indicate more than 90 per cent of children begin life breast-feeding. The problem is, too many mothers give up breast-feeding too soon.
WHO recommends babies be breast-fed exclusively for the first six months of life. Breast-feeding should continue up to two years, supplemented with other foods. But in Thailand the median duration of breast-feeding declined by six months, according to the U.S.-based Demographic and Health Surveys' program, conducted between 1986 and 1989. "The breast-feeding rate duration figure is not getting any better," said Patti Rundall, international coordinator of the boycott. She works with the British-based Baby Milk Action, one of 140 independent groups worldwide involved In the Nestle boycott under the auspices of the Geneva-based International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN). Some affiliates of IBFAN also boycott American Home Products Corp. for marketing the formula in developing countries.
"Our campaign is not to get women to breast-feed. IBFAN cannot reach women. All we can do...(is) trigger governments to do that," said Rundall.
Inching up
It appears that in areas where baby formula manufacturers are complying with the intent of the code, such as in parts of Africa, the duration of breast-feeding rates are inching up.
In 1990 he WHO and UNICEF passed the Innocenti Declaration promoting breast-feeding. In 1991 UNICEF called fora "massive shift to breast-feeding culture" and called on countries to make the code law and on manufacturers to end free and low-cost supplies of infant formula to maternity wards and hospitals.
Countries with laws governing the marketing of baby formula include Kenya, Nigeria, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Nepal, Peru, Brazil, India, China, Bangladesh and Thailand. Codes are not enough, however: marketing violations have been documented in at least six of those countries.
Meanwhile, UNICEF and WHO are encouraging 20 industrialized countries to adopt the measures as law this year. So far, only Spain has said it would enact such legislation. The Clinton Democratic administration in the U.S. is more favorable to such laws than were the two previous Republican administrations.
Studies show that women do respond to breast-feeding promotion. In Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, for example, a 10-year government-sponsored breast-feeding campaign boosted the average length of time a child was breast-fed from four to seven months by 1987, according to Shea Rutstein, analyst with the Demographic and Health Surveys Program of the Institute for Resource Development in Maryland, in the United States.
"Over the last 100 years women have been misled and given misinformation about the whole process of breast-feeding. It's only recently that the benefits of breast-feeding have been found... The health community itself does not know....The textbooks are totally wrong," said Margaret Kyenkya, adviser to UNICEF's Infant and Child Feeding Program in New York. "For a long time mothers were making the decision but from one side... all their information came from the makers of baby formula."
Added Rundall: "Women want to do what is best for their babies - but women are stopped. Fifty per cent of women (in Britain) who want to breast-feed were given a bottle by their health care system."
T. Vlahou
The danger posed by radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster is far from over - particularly where forests are concerned - yet lack of research funding is crippling efforts to measure or contain on- going damage, a joint committee of United Nations agencies warns.
Researchers sample logs to check for nuclear contamination - Photo by ECE/FAO
The catastrophic 1986 release of radioactive cesium, strontium, plutonium and other substances from an out-of-control nuclear power reactor wreaked havoc not only in the former Soviet Union, but around the world, as rain and winds carried contaminants across the Northern Hemisphere. Now, eight years later, radionuclides have been detected to varying degrees in the ecosystems of 13.1 million hectares in the three worst-affected countries - 4.7 million ha in Russia, 4.6 million ha in Belarus and 3.7 million ha in Ukraine. More than four million ha - an area the size of Switzerland - are forest.
Forest ecosystems have also collected the heaviest share of contaminants, creating potentially severe problems for the timber industry, according to a statement by the joint timber and agriculture committee of FAO, the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the International Labour Organisation.
A thriving community in Belarus is now a post-Chernobyl ghost town - Photo by ECE/FAO
Millions needed
"The joint (UN) committee is not in a position to fund research," said Alex Korotkov, a forester with the committee's secretariat in Geneva. "Its role is to draw public attention to the problem and stimulate international cooperation on these issues, because someone - the World Bank, for example - should fund the research. We really need millions spent on this.
"When you're dealing with radioactivity, the changes happen so fast. Information which could have been obtained two years ago is already lost because the situation changes every day."
More than 20 per cent of Belarus' territory was contaminated by cesium alone; 2.1 million people were living in that area when the accident happened, and radioactive contamination hit about 25 per cent of available woodlands of the country.
Contamination has severely harmed the forest sector in all three countries, mainly because of reductions in all types of economic and recreational use of forests, increases in forest-management costs, and the expense of compensating for social damage (wage supplements to work in the forests, resettlement costs, etc.).
Huge abandoned forest areas contaminated with radionuclides create a lot of problems, including increased risk from forest fires. Preventing, detecting and extinguishing fires on such territory is extremely difficult. Apart from the direct economic and ecological damage from burning, fires can create secondary contamination of neighboring territories through radionuclides released into the atmosphere (smoke, ash, cinder, soot) and surface water runoff. The difficulties posed are just becoming apparent. For example, can contaminated wood be safely traded?
Another cost is to adequately protect forest workers, local inhabitants and consumers of forest products against radiation. Then there are the ecological problems (maintenance of the requisite level of forest protection and introduction of optimal monitoring schemes).
Between 1986 and 1993 researchers monitored the migration of radionuclides in the air, soil, wood and water, and its movement between the four. Such radioecological monitoring shows the process of redistribution of radionuclides varies depending on the type of forest and weather conditions. The most radioactive parts of contaminated trees are the bark, foliage (needles) and branches. Radionuclide content in the mineral layer of the soil increases as a result of migration from the tree litter.
Hard field conditions
Joint committee chemo-specialists meeting in Mogilev, Belarus last November, bemoaned the lack of funding for monitoring and analysis, and complained of the extremely hard and dangerous field conditions faced by scientists and foresters of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. They are experienced in the organization of radiometrical control, protection from forest fires and pests and reforestation of contaminated areas, but they lack protective clothing, radiometrical devices, laboratory equipment and transport.
"The view of empty villages and huge abandoned areas served as a very impressive illustration of problems facing the international community in connection with the Chernobyl accident," said the joint committee in a press release. "On the other side it showed opportunities and possibilities for cooperation in the area. Participants (in the November meeting) were convinced of the need to maintain the activity of the team of specialists and develop its program of work."
Further information: ECE/FAO Agriculture and Timber Division, Palais des Nations, CH-1211, Geneva 10, Switzerland.
A little of what you fancy does you good, goes the adage - which may be as true for tomatoes as for humans. Researchers in Taiwan are finding a little squirt of the right fertilizer, at the right time, speeds growth, boosts yields and reduces total fertilizer use.
The two cabbage seedlings on the left received starter solution, the third did not - Photo by AVRDC
Most commercially grown vegetables in this island nation are germinated in nurseries and later transplanted to the field. But transplanting can be traumatic for seedlings, and it takes plants some time to start growing again. That inevitable setback can mean a longer maturation period and lower yields.
To counter these adverse effects, growers tend to over-fertilize the ground before transplanting. Normally, inputs are applied to seed-beds before seedlings are transplanted, but because they are evenly mixed through the soil, they aren't necessarily near the young roots and readily available. Overuse of fertilizers can also lead to nutrient imbalance, poorer fruit quality and, in the long term, environmental damage as excess fertilizers pollute water supplies.
Such pollution will get worse as the trend to more intensive production continues, so there is an urgent need to reduce inputs. As well, fertilizers are too expensive to be wasted.
Those are the reasons why Dr. David Midmore of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Centre (AVRDC) in Taiwan, has begun a program to find ways to use fertilizer more efficiently without reducing yields. Studies by Midmore show transplanted seedlings are physically unable to take up applied nutrients quickly unless the fertilizer is applied very close to their roots.
Rather than fertilize a whole field prior to transplanting, Midmore has found that if a small amount of fertilizer is placed right next to the transplanted seedling, its roots can absorb nutrients quickly, and the normal setback is diminished. Furthermore, different vegetables require different fertilizer in the delicate seedling phase. "For Chinese cabbage it seems nitrogen is the element that is particularly lacking just after transplanting," says Midmore. "So there is a tremendous response in terms of early growth and yield in seedlings which have had a solution of nitrogen applied to them at transplanting."
In 1991 trials at AVRDC, top growth and root development of Chinese cabbage seedlings were improved when they received a squirt of liquid fertilizer at transplanting. The effect was apparent just four days after application. Best results were achieved with seedlings that received 240 milligrams of nitrogen and 120 mg of phosphate. Similar trials were carried out the following year. Again best results were obtained with liquid compound fertilizer containing 240 mg of nitrogen per plant. The trials were thrown off when fields were hit by a typhoon, but even so, the treated crop yielded 16 per cent more at harvest.
Similar results have been seen with tomatoes and hot peppers. However, their fertilizer needs as seedlings are slightly different than those of Chinese cabbage. "Longer season crops, such as chili peppers and tomatoes respond better to phosphorus," said Midmore. He has tried increasing levels of phosphorus up to about 10 kg per hectare. It encourages earlier fruiting and, therefore, a quicker return to the farmer.
Liquid fertilizer would have to be applied annually in each transplanting hole. AVRDC engineers are now developing a machine to do it mechanically.
Another benefit of the technique is reduction in the amounts of fertilizer used. Midmore has tried cutting the fertilizer applied to the seed-bed before transplanting. While some additional nitrogen is needed later in the plant's growth, proper application of the starter solution meant half the usual amount of nitrogen was needed to grow his Chinese cabbages. That saving means, of course, less fertilizer will eventually percolate through the soil and pollute groundwater.
David Dixon
For further information, contact: the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Centre, P.O. Box 42, Shanhua, Tainan, Taiwan 741.
In the post-Green Revolution world, one of the most promising aspects of sustainable cropping systems is integrated pest management (IPM), of which a key component is biological control of pests using their natural enemies.
But biocontrol is a tricky business, effective only if enough effort and time are spent accurately identifying both crop pests and their enemies. The technology and skills have been available for some time, but until recently little effort was put into in-depth systematic and taxonomic studies of control agents. Most of the latter are parasitic wasps and flies which live off - and ultimately kill - crop pests.
In 1990, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) decided to move toward using biological control to reduce the impact of stem borers on the continent's all-important cereals. These subsistence crops - maize, sorghum, millet and rice - are grown mostly by smallholders, to feed their families and local populations. Stem borers are larvae of moths belonging to the families Noctuidae and Pyralidae. They're a fact of life in Africa, and it's not unusual for them to damage 25-60 per cent of cereal crops. In bad years, unexpected attack by borers coupled with the wrong combination of climate and timing of the crop, can lead to 100 per cent yield loss.
The promising, sustainable approach is to combine biological control of pests with more resistant crop varieties and improved farming practices. There are already many success stories in biological control, particularly using hymenopterous parasitoids (wasps), so the need is clear for a thorough and accurate survey of the natural enemies of cereal stem borers.
Funded by the Netherlands
Following a request from the OAU's Inter-African Phytosanitary Council to FAO, funding was provided by the Netherlands' Directorate-General for International Cooperation for an investigation into the cereal stem borer pests of Africa. Wageningen Agricultural University, in collaboration with London's International Institute of Entomology, studied the distribution of borers and their crop and non-crop hosts (such as wild grasses) in Africa. Particular attention was paid to their enemies, and to possible agents found outside Africa which could be useful for control. An international network of those interested in stem borer control was developed, and databases for stem borer control methods and borer enemies have been established. Those databases are already in use by control experts and workers in Africa.
However, difficulties in correctly identifying pests and their enemies are a major obstacle to implementation of biocontrol. There are about 17 species of economically important lepidopterous (butterflies and moths) stem borers which attack cereals in Africa. Many are closely related and difficult to distinguish in the field - particularly species of Chilo, Scirpophaga and Sesamia. An added complication is that their host ranges and distributions often overlap geographically. It is even more difficult to distinguish between the immature stages (eggs, caterpillars) of these pests - the very stages at which they are usually attacked by natural enemies.
Misidentification of pests and enemies has resulted in publication of false data which have been perpetuated, often for decades. For example, of l2 pre-1990 records of parasitoids of African stem borer eggs, all but one were misidentifications. There is currently no single manual or guide available for distinguishing either the adults or the immature stages of the cereal stem borer complex, nor for their natural enemies, for the whole of Africa.
In Kenya, the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology is working with Wageningen experts on a program of classical biological control of the Asian stem borer Chilo partellus Swinhoe. It was accidentally introduced into Africa, where it has thrived in the absence of enemies, particularly parasitoids. In classical biological control, one looks to the country of origin of an exotic pest to find host-specific enemies. These can then be released in the new country in hope of restoring an ecological balance. In this particular case a parasitic wasp Cotesia flavipes (Cameron) has been introduced from Asia, where it is known to attack Chilo partellus under natural conditions.
If all goes well - and the parasite does not expand its list of victims to include new, indigenous species in its adopted country - the imported control population will be regulated automatically by availability of food, in this case borers. The population of both exotics should grow and ebb in tandem, particularly since parasitoid wasps are highly host-specific. Again, however, problems lie in identification. In Africa, another Cotesia species is virtually indistinguishable from C. flavipes (Cameron). The two need to be closely monitored so an accurate judgement can be made of the effectiveness of C. flavipes in borer control.
Some of the most exciting work includes studies in northern Nigeria, where researchers were surprised to find distribution of a Sesamia species which they thought existed as a pest only in northeast Africa; and in Madagascar and other parts of Africa, where a detailed study has revealed a total of 24 species of parasitoids which attack the white rice borer.
An easy method
Concerning other natural enemies, an easy method of separating C. sesamiae from one of the two other Cotesia species to which it is so similar, has been developed and a course was run in Kenya to train local entomologists to recognize the two species. The separation technique is not particularly difficult to employ; it just takes time, had never been used before on these particular species, and the technology and skills had not been transferred to the field before.
So far, more than 150 species of stem borer natural enemies, in about 80 genera, have been recorded in African cereals, providing a rich resource of data for development of IPM methods within Africa and elsewhere. This does not include the numerous predatory Coleoptera (beetles) and Formicidae (ants) which have been shown to be of such importance for IPM in Asian rice farming. Furthermore, numerous species of protozoa, nematodes, fungi and viruses have also been observed attacking cereal stem borers. Worldwide, more than 600 species of natural enemies of stem borers have been recorded. Of the African species, about 40 are new to science.
A crucial component of the current project is the provision of training courses for applied entomologists and extension workers for both French- and English-speaking Africa. The project has highlighted the need for local, regional expertise in the taxonomy and systematics of the organisms important to agricultural systems.
Andrew Polaszek is an entomologist with Wageningen Agricultural University, the Netherlands, and the International Institute of Entomology, London.
When peace and stability return to Rwanda, the population will still have to deal with the harsh realities of everyday life, particularly the difficulties of food production. It's not easy to farm in Rwanda - although 95 per cent of Rwandans make their living that way. An exploding population caused farms to fragment into five, 10 or even 20 separate parcels with each generation. Large families have only garden-sized plots to cultivate, using hand tools and limited amounts of manure. Fields are cropped intensively with bananas, beans, local greens, sweet potato and cassava.
National indicators suggest how much this Central African country is being stretched. Population density is the highest on the continent (445 persons per square kilometre of arable land), per capita income among the lowest (US$285), and chronic malnutrition touches over 50 per cent of children under the age of six. Landlocked, without important mineral deposits, Rwanda has to intensify its agriculture. But how? Until the recent massacres shut down the project, farmers and researchers were enjoying terrific success exploring one remarkably promising avenue: improved cultivars of climbing bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.),
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What's in a name?* (* see: small print on package back) Marketers of processed foods spend large amounts of time and money to establish their brand; names or corporate identities. But sometimes, the New York Times notes, they take equally elaborate measures to cloak the origin of their products - usually for reasons of image or snob appeal. Campbell, renowned for its homey canned soup, also markets the somewhat more exotic Godiva chocolates - but under the name of a subsidiary company. Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers were ostensibly sold by a couple of small-town bottlers from their front porch. But Mr. Bartles and Mr. Jaymes were fictitious the brand is produced by the E.& J. Gallo Winery, the largest vintner in the United States. Other instances include, Zima clear malt beverage, labelled by small-time brewer of that name. but Zima is in fact the Memphis, Tennessee plant of the giant Coors Brewing Co. Icehouse ice-brewed beer is marketed by the friendly sounding Plank Road Brewery. It is owned by Miller, another huge brewer. Plank Road was Miller's original name, from 1855 to 1873. Arthur Higbee, International Herald Tribune |
Protein source
Beans are a high-potential key to bolstering Rwandan nutrition. Most families eat beans once a day - if they're lucky, twice daily - with all stages of the plant cooked: leaves, green pods, green seed, as well as dry beans. Annual consumption of beans, 60 kg per capita, is the highest anywhere, contributing 65 per cent of protein and 30 per cent of the Rwandan caloric intake. Most farmers (more than 85 per cent) sow beans in both major seasons, with more and more trying for a third, off-season crop.
Until about 1985, beans grown in Rwanda were mostly of the bush type, some 30 cm tall. Climbing beans, which produce vines that can reach two metres, were commonly grown by only about 10 per cent of the population, primarily in the northwest. Cultivating rich volcanic soils, these farmers knew local climbers could give twice the yield of local bush cultivars.
Elsewhere, however, Rwandans were put off by the climbers' disadvantages: they need to be staked, take about a month longer to mature, and demand more fertile soils. In the mid-1980s only five per cent of southern and central farmers grew climbing beans, and then only in tiny plots.
A suite of factors prompted interest in improved climbing beans. Farmers own, on average, less than a hectare of land. They have become desperate to intensify production, but found their bush beans not always yielding up to par (in good years, about 750 kg/ha). Further, a dramatic rise in root rot diseases, coupled with continuing declines in soil fertility, resulted in bush yield losses of over 50 per cent during both the June 1989 and January 1991 harvests.
In happier times: a Rwandan farm family by their new bean stakes - Photo by CIAT
In the early 1980s the Institut des sciences agronomiques du Rwanda (ISAR), with technical support from the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), launched a well-timed campaign to promote climbing beans. By the mid-1980s a range of improved cultivars were ripe for on-farm testing. The most promising ones, originating in Mexico and transferred via CIAT International Nurseries, proved more suitable for use in Rwanda's lower altitudes than local climbers.
One cultivar, G2333, was relatively early maturing (100 days), tolerant of low soil phosphorus, and virtually immune to anthracnose. That variety was christened Umub-anomwiza, or "Good collaboration," to honor the ISAR/CIAT relationship. It was scooped up by farmers who loved not only its bean yield but its leaves, which were "more delicious than spinach." One of the local farmers' names for it, Sambumbi, or "grows even on poor soils" suggests its unusual adaptability.
Interest was further spurred after 1985. The Great Lakes' Bean Improvement Network, supported by the Swiss Development Cooperation and CIAT, joined with development projects and farmer collaborators to research key management issues. The goal: to identify a basket of techniques from which farmers themselves could choose or adapt appropriate climbing bean cultivation practices.
In terms of staking, research partners worked simultaneously on several options: the use of "dead" stakes (wood); "living" stakes (agro-forestry species, or standing crops); and even trellises made from banana cord. Most farmers came to prefer wood stakes, but all these alternatives are finding use. Living crop stakes (maize and manioc) and banana cord grids are particularly of interest to new adopters in eastern Zaire, and the agroforestry species Sesbania macrantha is finding users in Rwanda's Central Plateau.
The fertility challenge has been pursued by several teams. The Zairian National Program (PNL) has been at the forefront of experiments to integrate climbers with banana groves, the part of the farmer's plot which traditionally gets the most manure fertilizing. ISAR and CIAT have explored agroforestry species (particularly Sesbania, Calliandra and Leucaena spp.), and an FAO project has promoted several mineral fertilizer possibilities.
A Rwandan extension worker in a farmer's luxurious climbing bean plot - Photo by CIAT
Delivering the goods
Ways to efficiently disseminate seeds for growing the improved climbers have been a third research concern. CIAT has taken a lead in trying to design more farmer-responsive delivery systems. Multiple varieties have been offered, in heat-sealed plastic bags sold in test-sizes. Improved varieties have been disseminated through informal channels - open markets, country kiosks - in order to reach both poor and better-off farmers.
Researchers deliberately put no instructions for cultivation on the packages. By trusting farmers to know what to do to best suit local conditions, they opened the way for flexible management of a supposedly demanding crop. In response, farmers have pushed climbers beyond what scientists thought were the limits - with highly productive results.
Recent surveys by the Rwanda Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) showed over half a million farmers (40 per cent of all Rwandan farmers) were growing improved climbing beans. The new cultivars have been as popular in the south, where they were not traditionally planted, as in the north, where farmers were used to climbers. By 1994, half to three-quarters of farmers in both regions were growing them.
Analysis of exactly who adopted the beans produced more surprises. Adoption was relatively high across all farm sizes and wealth classes, but greatest among those with the smallest holdings (48 per cent of those owning less than a quarter hectare) and lowest incomes (50 per cent of families with less than US$190 per year). Further, female-headed households, a fifth of the population, proved as likely to adopt as male-headed ones. Thus, while climbing bean technology has been described as demanding high levels of both capital and labor (i.e. stakes and manure), even those poorest in both resources seemed willing to bear the costs.
The family view
What do climbing beans mean for the Rwandan family? Most importantly, more beans. On average soils, a typical climbing bean plot of about 400 square metres can give roughly 75 kilos, or three baskets of beans, versus one for bush beans. Second, climbing beans assure more stable production. During the season of heavy rains, climbers lose less than a fifth of their prime season production, while bush bean yields are nearly cut in half.
The canopy of climbers is better aerated, and may make them more tolerant of foliar diseases. Certainly their longer cycle enables them to better recover from sharp and transient stresses. Finally, many farmers appreciate the staggered development of climbing varieties: green leaves, an important source of vitamin A, can be harvested for up to six weeks (versus two to three for bush varieties); and with the beans maturing at different times on the climbers, they can't all be stolen (or "walk away") at one time.
The adoption of climbing beans has been rapid, pervasive, and unusually profitable. During the two cropping seasons of 1992 alone, the use of improved climbing beans gave Rwandan farmers 50 000 additional tons of beans or the equivalent of an extra US$12 million in income. Climbing beans have also caught on in neighboring Zaire, Burundi, and Uganda. Results are evident where it counts - in farmers' fields.
Louise Sperling
French African countries in the Zone Franc* underwent a shock earlier this year when their regional currency, the CFA franc*, was devalued by 50 per cent. They were pushed into the devaluation by the French government which, at the urging of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, said it would no longer bridge budget deficits nor service debts in its former colonies unless those countries agreed to the currency adjustment, supposed to lead to economic recovery.
*The Zone Franc includes Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Chad, Togo and Comoros. CFA refers, in West Africa, to the regional grouping Communauté financière en Afrique, and in Central Africa, to the regional group Coopération financière en Afrique.From 1948 until 12 January 1994, 100 CFA francs equalled 2 French francs; following devaluation, 100 CFA francs = FF1.
The immediate losers were city dwellers used to buying cheap imported foods and products. Prices doubled overnight, and there were riots. The immediate winners were retailers and traders who took advantage of panic buying. Rural folk should benefit over the long term, as local produce and commodities will have a price advantage over imports as well as being more attractive in export markets - unless middlemen and/or governments reap all those profits.
As the following brief reports demonstrate, it is still difficult to tell whether the devaluation will ultimately benefit or push into further decline the already-stressed economies of French Africa.
Before and after the devaluation of the French African franc - Courtesy Jeune Afrique Economie
COTE D'IVOIRE
"The devaluation of the CFA franc has turned Côte d'Ivoire into the world leader in cocoa production," was the optimistic assessment of one of the most important European buyers of Côte d'Ivoire cocoa. Calculations made just after the January 12 devaluation showed the resale price of Côte d'Ivoire cocoa had fallen below that of its main rival, Indonesia. Despite price increases of 20 per cent by the planter and nearly 90 per cent in related production and marketing costs (fertilizer, phytosanitary products, freight and insurance), shortly after the devaluation Côte d'Ivoire cocoa was offered to European importers at 600 French francs per ton less than Indonesian cocoa. Prior to devaluation, Côte d'Ivoire cocoa cost FF1 100/t more than the competition.
The market now favors cocoa from Côte d'Ivoire and other CFA countries. But how should African authorities make best use of their market advantage?
· They could bet on quality, investing the profits from devaluation on production (offering incentive prices, assistance with funding overheads, modernizing cultivation methods, resuming crop research).· They could tax exports and redistribute the revenue by subsidizing vital imports and raising civil servants' salaries.
· They could maintain the price gap and weaken their Asian and South American rivals.
In all likelihood Zone Franc governments will adopt a blend of these options. The success or failure of the devaluation will depend on achievement of this subtle blend.
A key approach would be to use new revenues from increased sales to make long-term investments in commodity processing. Said one cotton company representative: "It is not a matter of using the devaluation to lower our prices. We have no trouble finding buyers for African cotton. On the contrary we have to take advantage of it to renovate our mills and make essential investments to restore the quality of our export products."
SENEGAL AND NIGER
The CFA devaluation may have been good for exports, but it sent the prices of imported foods skyrocketing. Of great concern was the price of rice, a staple food largely imported from Southeast Asia.
Rather than encouraging local rice production and its consumption, prior to devaluation governments imported rice and resold it to wholesalers at a higher price, thus creating large funds intended for stabilizing prices of basic commodities. It was on such transactions the government of Senegal's stabilization fund earned 20 billion CFA francs per year.
The January devaluation pushed prices of imported rice sky-high. To maintain pre-devaluation prices and keep a lid on civil unrest the Senegalese government would have to subsidize imported rice at a cost to the treasury of 30 billion CFA francs per year.
Can French Africans still afford their favorite imported staple? Rice became a staple in Niger in just the last 15 years. Average consumption grew from four kilos/person/year in 1975 to 11 kg in 1985 and 15 kg in 1990. Campaigns to promote local cereals did not manage to reverse the trend.
For several years local Niger rice was eschewed by consumers in favor of Asian rice. Before devaluation, consumers complained local rice was more expensive than imported rice, and yielded less after cooking. Restaurant owner Madame Garaba Biba explained: "Not only does local rice cost 11 000 CFA francs per 50 kg compared to 8 500 CFA francs for imported rice, it also absorbs less water. A sack lasts me 20 to 25 days at the most, as against 45 days for imported rice."
Now that devaluation has pushed imported rice into the luxury category, local rice may be more palatable. Since January, Niger has been living on "adaptable rice," a subtle blend of Pakistani and local rice: 15 kg of the former for every 35 kg of the latter, all baled in blue-banded sacks of imported rice, the better to dupe customers. Consumers have not hesitated to remonstrate with retailers, who pass the buck to their suppliers.
Issa Mato, a local wholesaler, has been busy promoting his adaptable rice, which he argued "is good rice. Moreover, you can't immediately tell the difference from Pakistani rice. It is going to be the devaluation rice because there is a lot of it and it costs half as much. People will eventually start buying it because they will not be able to buy imported rice which now costs 15 000 to 16 000 francs."
Devaluation has meant times have changed for RINI, the Niger state enterprise charged with buying and processing locally grown rice. Previously RINI hadn't enough money to pay farmers for their rice, and couldn't find buyers for the local product which competed with cheaper black-market imports. Immediately after devaluation, however, RINI was inundated with orders. The price of Pakistani rice reached 16 000 CFA/kg, compared with 11 000 CFA/kg for local rice. Some orders may not be met as government stores have been at times completely out of stock.
But the euphoria is only fleeting for Ousmane Djika, general manager of RINI. Backlogs of local product have been exhausted, so new harvests must be grown using imported inputs, and the prices of fertilizer and pesticides have doubled. Prices for Niger rice will surely rise. Those inputs are necessary to raise local rice production in the irrigated perimeters of the Niger Valley.
"The local production of rice and coarse grains is likely to be encouraged, so is the volume of trade within the CFA zone and with neighboring non-CFA countries," according to a report prepared for the FAO Conference on World Food Security in March. However, the FAO report noted "food aid deliveries may also increase this year as it seems that donors have received new food aid requests from several countries." FAO warned the favorable impact of devaluation will apply only to those goods, formerly imported, which are also locally produced: "Thus, for example, wheat or wheat flour imports will remain necessary, though FAO estimates their volume could decline by around 150 000 tons (or about 12 per cent)."
TOGO
Closed supermarkets and shops, shortages as sudden as they were unjustified, artificially inflated prices, bewildered customers, impotent government inspectors. This could have been the scenario in Ouagadougou, Niamey, Abidjan, Bamako, Libreville or Cotonou. But we are in Lomé, capital of Togo. The Togo government was unable to stop traders taking advantage of the CFA franc devaluation. Despite announcement of a price freeze at the time of devaluation, prices for most imported and local goods immediately soared from 75 to 100 per cent.
At the Dakar summit when the countries of the Zone Franc approved the devaluation, governments rightly feared traders would take advantage of the fall of the CFA franc by immediately changing price tags on imported goods purchased at the old exchange rate, or illegally hoarding goods in order to sell them after the price freeze was lifted. "Strict checks will be carried out over the whole national territory," warned Togo's Minister of Commerce following devaluation. He bade traders "to continue normal distribution of products and to guarantee the same prices (as before devaluation) until new instructions."
Traders ignored the ministry's exhortations. Prices immediately doubled on imported goods such as sugar, condensed milk and rice.
The same was true for local products. Prices went up 50-100 per cent and more on essentials such as the "precious gari" (cassava semolina) and on Togolese maize. In view of the impotence of the Ministry of Commerce regarding unscrupulous traders, unions and political parties multiplied demands that shop inspections be enforced. "Why not take forceful measures like other countries, which close down shops which do not toe the line?" people in the capital asked themselves.
The chaotic economic situation following devaluation in Togo closely resembled that in other countries of the Zone Franc.
In hopes of countering some of the effects of devaluation, France cancelled the entire debt of the low-income Zone Franc countries and half the debt of the middle-income countries. Worsening the effect of the devaluation was the fact that as of February, 22 000 Togolese government employees were owed seven months' back pay. Since on average each employee supports 10 people, this means up to 250 000 Togolese were hit by the double whammy of government payroll shortfall and devaluation. Such is the case in much of francophone Africa. In the capital of Togo the mood was dismal. "We are fed up with the French always exploiting us" can be heard everywhere. "They are never satisfied, and now they are killing us with this devaluation."
Compiled from reports by Syfia News Service contributors Jacques Douti Sourou, Robert Bourgoing, Amadou Hamidou, Abdou Saidou and Antoine Labey.
When the rains fall steadily in their sierra, the people of Mexico's Chiapas state say, the floods come to the rest of the country.
In fact, it's been raining in Chiapas for 500 years - raining stones, at least on the sierra region's peasants, many of whom are of Mayan descent. When the clouds broke on New Year's Day and the indigenous people of Chiapas launched their revolt against centuries of oppression, Mexicans throughout the country shuddered with a premonition worse was to come. Something worse did come, in terms of conventional politics: Luis Donaldo Colosio, presidential candidate for the long-governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (RPI), was shot dead during a campaign stop in Tijuana on 23 March.
At first, Indian rebels were blamed. Then darker mutterings were heard. Was the assassination a conspiracy between the military, much criticized for its handling of the Chiapas revolt, and the old guard of the RPI, angry with Colosio and retiring president Carlos Salinas for making concessions to the rebels and for opening up Mexico's economy?
In time, theories and certainties about those watershed events in Mexico in 1994 will emerge, merge and become confused. One thing is obvious: in Chiapas the boiling-point has been surpassed, despair has turned to action and calm will return only when justice tempers the reality of living in the sierra.
What reform?
Agrarian reform brought to the rest of the country by the Mexican Revolution (1910-17) never reached Chiapas. On the contrary, it was during this very period the latifundio system of large landed estates was established, and cattle ranchers demolished great parts of the Lacondona forest and occupied Mayan lands. The newcomers also scorned Mayan culture - that ancient civilization which built astronomical observatories, used a solar calendar more advanced than that of the Europeans at the time of Hernan Cortes, and gave us the literary marvels of the myths of the Popol-Vuh through which Mayan history can be traced.
If an Indian walking along the sidewalk meets a white man or mestizo (mixed-race person), he must humbly step down to the road. These descendants of the refined Mayan civilization so admired by foreigners and exploited by merchants and mestizo hoteliers, glimpse the luxuries of the "civilized world" only through tourists and shop-window televisions, while they themselves lack shoes, clothing, education, proper housing, public services, food and drinking-water. They often die of diarrhea and cholera. Official data show that 77 per cent of all children in Chiapas are severely malnourished.
The rebels in Chiapas are asking primarily for land, for development and democracy, and respect for their dignity and their ways. They embrace the figure of Emiliano. Zapata, the Indian leader of fiery, penetrating eyes and grand moustache, who with his peasant army and the slogan "Land and Liberty" raised up the south of Mexico and occupied the nation's capital during the first agrarian revolution of the century.
The Mexican government has recognized the "historical retardation" of Chiapas, and the legitimacy of the demands of the indigenous people. It initiated negotiations with the rebels, mediated by the bishop of San Cristobal de las Casas, and made some immediate concessions: distribution of food and credit, promises to back coffee prices, dismissal of officials particularly antagonistic to the Indians. The government is also making a study of land distribution, and may buy out the latifundistas and return to the indigenous communities some of the land they once owned. As well, the national army suspended operations against the rebels.
Local landowners, however, supported by those in neighboring states, are arming themselves and preparing to resist occupation of their land or a contingent agrarian reform plan decreed by the government in order to appease the peasants of Chiapas.
Central American reality
Both geographically and in its political reality, Chiapas is closer to Guatemala and the rest of Central America than to the relatively more prosperous northern regions of Mexico - the "North American" part of the country that is the world's 13th largest industrial power, the Mexico which signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the very day of the outbreak of the Chiapas revolt. Even in the most prosperous regions of Mexico, however, extreme poverty and great wealth live side by side, and the agrarian question poses severe social and environmental problems. Mexicans throughout the country look to the sky, thinking about the rain in the sierra.
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Mexican numbers game Estimates of the size of Mexico's indigenous community vary and are highly political. The government's definition of "indigenous" is someone who continues living in his traditional community, speaks an indigenous language, wears traditional clothing and follows ancient community traditions. That definition excludes Indians who move to nearby towns, speak poor Spanish and face discrimination. The government estimates indigenous communities make up eight per cent of Mexico's 90 million people-but account for 12 per cent of deaths in the country each year - statistically 50 per cent more than their share of the overall population should warrant. Indian pressure groups figure their numbers account for 15 per cent of the population. In Chiapas, it is believed one-third of the population is Indian. While the minimum income necessary for a family of four in Mexico is believed to be 200 pesos (US$3) per day, only 3.6 per cent of people in Chiapas manage to earn half that amount. Twenty per cent in Chiapas have no cash income at all. The state produces over 60 per cent of Mexico's electricity - yet close to 40 per cent of Chiapans do not have electric power in their homes. A.T.C. |
While Chiapas awaits its version of the French and Mexican revolutions, the rest of the country has moved on. The free market economy symbolized by NAFTA has created a market for land in the rest of the country. Until recently the national constitution protected the collective status of the ejidos (common land). Farmers enjoyed use of that common land but did not hold private ownership of the plots. An amendment to Article 27 of the constitution has changed the status of the ejidos, so land can be mortgaged, bought and sold.
No one knows yet what will be the net effect of this change to land tenure law, and of another measure taken to cut subsidies for domestic agricultural products. It is perfectly clear, however, that free importation of U.S. grains has driven off the market corn grown by the small farmers - those who depend on such surplus earnings to pay debts, buy salt and clothing, pay school fees, pay for funerals, weddings, and for food the family is unable to produce on tiny and scarcely productive plots.
If smallholders sell off their land to large-scale operations, they will be obliged to emigrate to overpopulated and polluted cities. Their land would shift from the production of basic foodstuffs to more lucrative crops (strawberries, exotic fruits, hamburger beef) destined for the U.S. market. The nation would become increasingly dependent on imports of foreign foods. In some countries, that's a sign of progress, but in Mexico's skewed social structure it may mean the hungry get hungrier.
As is so often the case when it comes to indigenous peoples, the list of struggles ahead for the people of Chiapas appears endless: the historical agrarian problem (lack of agrarian reform in Chiapas); the struggle for equality for the Indians (which constitute 15 per cent of the population); the quest for autonomy and for constitutional recognition of a multi-ethnic nation in which all groups enjoy equal dignity and rights; the new agrarian problems stemming from the concentration of landownership and the shifting of traditional crops and methods; the search for non-agricultural work in rural areas for those who abandon farming; a fairer distribution of wealth and resources; and democratic participation in the building of a common future.
Neglected Chiapas is but one touchstone enabling us to gauge the true degree of modernization in Mexico. Significant though industrialization has been in recent years in Mexico, the country's passage into the 21st century depends on bringing up to date all the rural areas which have not yet passed through the 18th and 19th centuries, let alone the 20th. If the revolution of Mexico's national heroes Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa was the first of this century, this resumption of never-fulfilled Zapatist aspirations in southern Mexico could usher in modernity as rural Mexico plays catch up in the coming century.
Ana Teresa Cattaneo
Rome - July-August 1994 - No. 76
Weather, war and mismanagement of resources continue to bedevil efforts to promote food security throughout the world, as reports prepared by FAO staff for the most recent meeting of the Organization's Committee on World Food Security show.
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GENERAL FOOD SECURITY |
In general, the state of world food security as modelled through study
of eight indicators shows the global food security situation deteriorated
in 1993/94 compared to the previous year. |
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STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT |
The dominant trend in food policies in developing countries remained
one of market liberalization: subsidy reduction and consumer price decontrol;
privatization and liberalization in cereal marketing; and reductions in
tariffs and greater exposure to world markets in trade policies. While
improvements in prices for their products has some farmers happy, other
rural people, particularly in the poorest food-importing countries, saw
their calorie intake decline because they couldn't afford to buy food. |
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FOOD AID |
Total volume of food aid in cereals to be made available in 1993/94 stood
at 11.4 million tons, about 25 per cent less than the previous year. While
that estimate was considered low and likely to rise, it did reflect a
generally reduced level of budgetary allocations from all major donors
except Australia. |
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GATT AND AGRICULTURE |
A major conference document focused on the new GATT agreement's effects
on world food security. The new General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
was finalized by the world's trading nations in December. As the GATT
is expected to reduce over-production in developed countries and lead
to a rise in prices for agricultural products, it is expected to benefit
the mid-range of developing agricultural economies. But higher prices
will hurt the poorest food-importing countries. Parties to the GATT recognized
this danger by agreeing to the Decision on Measures Concerning the
Possible Negative Effects of the Reform Program on Least-Developed and
Net Food-Importing Countries. |
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BOLSTERING INDIAN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION: A LONG-TERM INVESTMENT THAT PAID OFF |
A pioneering, 20-year-long series of four major FAO projects aimed at
strengthening postgraduate education and agricultural research in India
is drawing to a close after posting one of the most successful records
of its kind. Launched in 1973 with an investment of US$27 million from
the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the experience was unique,
not only for the size and duration of the UN contribution, but in its
innovative nature, which included introduction of a program approach and
national implementation many years before such approaches became conventional
wisdom. |
