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Desertification seen ravaging farming and wildlife |
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| EGYPT: March 19, 2002 | ||
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ALEXANDRIA - Desertification is devastating farm production and the variety of plant and animal life in many parts of the world, adding to pressure to produce food more efficiently, delegates at a conference said on the weekend.
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"We continue to lose good land to desertification through wind and water erosion, salinity, urbanisation and unsuitable farming practices," said Adel El-Beltagy, director-general of the Syria-based International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA). Brian Johnson, a leading British geneticist, said intensive farming methods, such as over-grazing, were degrading soils at an alarming rate and cutting their capacity to hold water. "Soil degradation has a significant effect on productivity," said Johnson, head of the Biotechnology Advisory Unit at English Nature, British government advisors on nature conservation. El-Beltagy said drought was one of the major stresses limiting productivity of field crops and keeping many communities trapped in poverty. "Drought is the worst enemy of the poor," he told the conference entitled "Biotechnology and sustainable development: Voices of the South and North." He estimated that one billion people live in the world's dry areas, which for the most part stretch across Central and West Asia and North Africa, from Kazakhstan to Mauritania. "West Asia and North Africa face the most serious threat of water shortages," he said. Johnson told delegates about 40 percent of the world's agricultural land was severely degraded, destroying the habitats of animal and plant life. "Bird populations are under siege worldwide," he said. Desertification withdraws the water and nutrients from the soil needed to maintain diversity of plant and animal life, thretening earth's fragile eco-system, delegates said. Biotechnology can be used to tune crops to their environment. Drought-and salt-resistant genetically modified (GM) varieties would be more able to withstand the ravages of desertification than conventional crops. The need for more efficient food production is even more pressing as much of the world's fast-growing population will be concentrated in the poor South where dry lands are widespread, delegates said. The global population is forecast to grow from some six billion now to more than eight billion by 2020, El-Beltagy said. But Johnson said politicians should carefully consider the use of new crops, such as GM strains, because they could lead to changes in land and water use that damage wildlife and promote intensification of agriculture and forestry. "The crops may be safe, but should we use them?" he said.
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Story by David Brough
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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