LIus Herrera Estrella farms some of the most fertile land in Mexico. But he's concerned about the many farmers whose yields have been plummeted because of depleted soil and crop disease. As a director of Mexico's biotechnology center, estrella hopes to help farmers by designing genetically stronger native crops, such as chillies and sweet peppers that ward off viral infections with only minimal use of pesticides and herbicides. The seeds his lab in Irapuato, Mexico develops may one day help to revolutionize agriculture.

One of the Estrella's supporters is the Monsanto Co. of St Louis, which contributed its biotechnological knowhow to his project.If Estrella is successful, Monsanto stands to benefit by marketing the seeds he develops.

Both Estrella and Monsanto stand at the cusp of a new age in agriculture in which insecticides, herbicides and fertilizers are used less while natural , biological pest-control systems and sturdier, bioengineered plants are developed. This kinder, gentler form of agriculture-often called sustainable agriculture-has gained support not just from farmers and international organizations like the United Nations and the Owlrd Bank, But from the agrichemical  industry itself. In fact, a spate of companies, including Britain's Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), Italy's Ferruzzi,Japan's Kubota,and Germany's BASF, are redesigningthier research efforts with environmental solutions in mind. As Giovanni Simoni of Ferruzzi puts it, "Agriculture has become too dependent on forms of production where more is considered better. We are focusing on techniques to reduce chemical inputs by up to 50 percent with increased crop quality and no loss in yields."

Much of this technology is likely to come in the form of biotechnology. Rather than propagating desirable tarits by cross breeding related species as has been done in the past, biotech researchers are altering plants by inserting selected genes or modifying existing ones. Monsanto reserchers have successfully inserted a naturally occurring bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t), into cotton plnats. When an insect feeds on the genetically modified plant, it ingests the B.t and dies. Unlike most insecticides, the B.t affects only the targeted insect, not other animals or humans that may ingest the plant. ICI is testing the same process in corn, in the hopes that B.t will successfully combat other devasting pests. Eventually, says Keith Pike of ICI, researches hope to use similiar genetic engineeribng techniques to help plants resist viral infections and survive long droughts.

Many of the latest "purely biological" techniques rely on neither manmade chemicals nor altered genes. Grasshopper infestations, for example, can sometimes be controlled by spraying a naturally occuring spore on crops. Similarly, the seeds and and leaves of the Indian Neem tree have been processed into a pesticide effective againest locusts. Recently, the government of Indonesia has even removed subsidies on pesticides for rice farmers in order to promote other, natural forms of insect control. According to Paul Faeth of the World resourses Institute in washington, D.C, "Indonesia was concerned about health problems and pesticide resistance. They knew the only way to encourage integrated pest management was to reduce subsidies on pesticides."

Ultimately, the shift towards sustainable agriculture is an attempt to feed the world without damaging the earth. Japan's kubota corp which has transformed a portion of Egypt's desert into an agricultral oasis with numerous tress and plants, states that its goal is to make all "human activities friendly to the earth". Simillarly, Ryoichi Sakawa, the japanese shipping magnate, began the Sasakawa Global 2000 agricultural project to develope hearty seedsand safer agricultral methods to help Third World farmers feed themselves wjile preserving the integrity of thier land. Clearly, sustainable agriculture is an idea whose time has come. 

Jane Bosveld

Source : Newsweek  June 17 1991

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