Alexander Golikov

“Why do you produce cargo and we - don’t?”
Jared Diamond


Most people won’t hesitate to name a strong army as the foundation of national security. That is only to be expected. Napoleon’s dictum that a nation that doesn’t wish to feed its own army will have to feed someone else’s has been an adage for over two hundred years. Therefore a strong army, well equipped and well trained, is seen as the best guarantee of national security. But a strong army is only the tip of the iceberg where national security is concerned. Most people tend to forget about the massive apparatus the army needs to be able to function – the logistics and technical services, the managers, the medics, let alone the civilian companies that supply the equipment and technology. These services are far more numerous than the army itself – otherwise the army will not be able to function properly. And even these services aren’t worth much unless they are backed up by a reliable system of national food security that is not dependent on foreign sources.  Bismarck completed Napoleon’s truism by adding that a nation that does not want to feed someone  else’s army must feed its own – emphasis  on “must feed”. This “must feed” is, I believe, the key element of national security, and it is largely based on stability and competitiveness of national economy. [1]

Jared Diamond in his book Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies,  cites the following example. “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?” the author was asked by a civil activist from Papua-New Guinea. [2] Cargo here means all the inventions, all the industrial and consumer goods brought into the country. It really is a question worth asking – how come that such a small number of countries have achieved such dominance in the world in terms of industrial power as well as military strength? Strange as it seems,  the answer to this question can be found in the role of agriculture in society.

At the dawn of mankind, the entire “food policy” consisted  of hunting and gathering. At that stage, no ethnic group could achieve dominance,  because whatever the racial or ethnic differences, the ability to hunt and gather was the same for everyone, only the scale of it was different.

Basic analysis suggests that the current status quo in the international standing of nations began with the technological transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and animal husbandry as the main source of food and non-food items. The key engine of development for any technology (especially in the conditions of an “open” unsaturated market) is the continuous growth of profit achieved through constantly falling costs and prices thanks to technological improvements and optimization of the cost structure. The instinctive pursuit of this strategy even at the earliest stages  of the development of various ethnic groups led to the appearance of agriculture as a separate and independent  industry that ensures  survival. That freed up substantial  human resources that could then be applied in other areas and industries, including various crafts, metal working, construction,  science,  infrastructure,  the arts, etc. The appearance of the army as an instrument of expansion or, conversely, as an instrument of defending against external threats, required – and still requires – a reliable system of food supply.

It is no longer important which ethnic groups had the better geographic conditions to transition from hunter-gathering to domesticating and breeding animals and plants, or to irrigation. What is important is that the nations that treat agriculture as a “high technology” and constantly improve that technology are the ones that continue to dominate on the world arena and to strengthen  their leadership.

The role of agricultural technology was perfectly articulated by Henry Ford back at the beginning of the 20th century. Ford said in his book,

“The primary functions are agriculture, manufacture, and transportation. Community life is impossible without them. They hold the world together. Raising things, making things, and earning things are as primitive as human need and yet as modern as anything can be. They are of the essence of physical life. When they cease, community life ceases… The farmer follows luck and his forefathers [nowadays]… That the farmer can stay on shows how wonderfully profitable farming can be… The moment the farmer considers himself as an industrialist, with a horror of waste either in material or in men, then we are going to have farm products so low-priced that all will have enough to eat, and the profits will be so satisfactory that farming will be considered as among the least hazardous and most profitable of occupations….” [3]

For the purposes  of this discussion on the role of agricultural technology in national security, “modern biotechnology” is defined as technologies covered by Paragraph  (i) Article 3 of the Protocol on Biosafety to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity:

“Modern biotechnology” means the application of:

1. In vitro nucleic acid techniques,  including recombinant  deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and direct injection of nucleic acid into cells or organelles, or
   
2. Fusion of cells beyond  the  taxonomic family, that  overcome  natural physiological reproductive or recombination barriers and that are not techniques used in traditional breeding and selection.” [4]
   

That means that “modern agricultural biotechnology” is synonymous with genetic engineering and genetic modification. Although both technologies have been widespread for many years, public attitude to them ranges  from wholehearted  acceptance to outright rejection. But it is those technologies  and their products  that have the huge potential to ensure  reliability and security of food supply, as well as the health of the agricultural markets.

There are several key factors that are critical for national security in terms of guaranteed supply of food and non-food agricultural items. These include:

• the choice of strategic agricultural crops;
• 
  maintaining large spare capacity, minimizing dependence on climate, pathogens, pests and impact of other industries, and protecting the environment;
• 
  intellectual property rights and geopolitics
• agriterrorism
  

CHOICE OF STRATEGIC CROPS

This is an essential element of preventing a nation’s dependence on foreign imports. The importance of it was appreciated even by Tzar Nicholas I in the early 19th century. Given the tense  international situation at that time, with a large-scale  military confrontation between Russia and an international coalition looming on the horizon, the tzar's government took care to ensure uninterrupted food supply even in the event of a long war compounded by military or economic blockade. As a result we have potato, which was chosen as a strategic crop in the 1830s, and which is still a vitally important crop for the whole country. A transition to using strategic  monocultures can hardly be completely smooth and free of any social risks (an extreme example of such risks is Russia’s potato revolts of the 1830-1840-ies, an outbreak of peasant protests against the imposition of a “new” and unusual crop which sometimes had to be quelled by the army). But it is such monocultures that constitute the basis of a nation’s food security. The criteria for the choice of strategic crops are simple: their productivity must be consistently high; they must be highly economical for the producer;  they must survive long storage; and, very importantly, they must be a valuable source of both food and animal fodder. Of course,  the traditional local crops must be kept as well, primarily for social reasons.

There are several of these strategic crops in the world, including of course cereals (wheat, rice and corn), soya, rape,  sugar  beet,  and cotton. [5] These crops are the key targets of genetic engineering and modification.

In 2008, genetically modified crops were grown on 125 million hectares (310 million acres) of farmland in 25 countries, including GM soya (53 percent), corn (30 percent), cotton (12 percent) and rape (5 percent). [6] In the United States, 85 percent of the soya and more than half of the corn grown is genetically modified. Herbicide tolerant GM wheat has already passed food safety tests and is ready for commercial launch. But it is being deliberately held back because its spread would lead to a rapid and drastic redistribution of the world market for wheat, causing unpredictable  social and economic upheavals that could destabilize the situation in the producer counties as well as internationally.

GM crops bring real economic benefits to the farmers and nations that have embraced them. In 2005, the use of just four GM crops – soya, corn, cotton and rape – generated an additional $5 billion for the farmers growing them. That figure rises to $5.6 billion if the second crop of soya in Argentina is included in the tally. That is about 3.5–4 percent of the total worth of the world market for these four crops. [7]

MAINTAINING LARGE SPACE CAPACITY, MINIMIZING DEPENDENCE ON CLIMATE, PATHOGENS, PESTS AND IMPACT OF OTHER INDUSTRIES, AND PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT

Food security does not just mean having plenty of food - or plenty of money to buy it – right here and right now. It means a guaranteed ability of the nation to rely only on its own internal resources for a fairly long period of time. That requires a large spare production capacity. In practice that translates into intensive farming of the existing farm lands while maintaining a large reserve of virgin and fallow lands. This approach  has significant environmental benefits as well. GM crops allow intensive farming to reach its full potential. Genetic modification has increased  crop yields by an average of 31 percent over the past 10 years. [8]   In Romania, GM soya brought productivity gains of 33 percent while reducing the use of chemical herbicides  and pesticides  by almost two thirds. In 2007 Romania imposed a ban on growing GM soya (for purely political reasons, after joining the European Union), leading to estimated losses of $100 million every year. [9]

In Russia, about half the crops is lost in the fields, even before harvesting. Some 20 percent is lost to weeds, 14 percent  - to pests  and 15 percent - to pathogens. [10] In 2004, the authorities in the Primorsky krai decided to stop growing corn because of lack of funds and resources needed to fight weeds and insect pests,  although the territory’s climate is just what is needed  for corn. There is no doubt that using GM crops resistant to insect pests, plant diseases and herbicides would radically improve productivity, as well as provide significant cost and labor savings.

Another important consideration is the efficient use of fresh water, a crucial resource that is vital for the environment, the economy and life as a whole. There is an obvious link between water resources and agriculture, but this tandem is also an important factor of national security and stability. Suffice is to recall the recent  border confrontation between  Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan over water needed  for irrigation, which came close to an armed conflict, or the overthrow of the Malagasy president in March 2009, partly caused by water problems in... South Korea, of all places. Due to growing food supply problems in South Korea, which does not have enough water to boost domestic production, the Daewoo concern signed an agreement with Madagascar  to lease at last half of the country’s farm lands to produce grain for South Korea. Public discontent over the terms of the agreement made the Malagasy president very unpopular, and the new government’s first step was to withdraw from the Daewoo deal. [11]

Agriculture is the largest consumer  of fresh water, accounting for at least 50 percent  of the world’s fresh water use. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that the figure will grow to 60 percent by 2030. Feeding one man for a day requires  5,000 liters of water (for example, a kilo of beef takes 15,000 liters to produce, and one kilo of wheat or corn - 2,000 liters). Creating plants that are resistant to drought or salt in the soil is a key area of agricultural biotechnology, and fairly good results have already been achieved. Using biotech crops also helps the spread of no-till farming, which led to savings of $3.5 billion dollars in the United States in 2002 by reducing the bill for cleaning drainage and irrigation systems, treating drinking water and processing  sewage. Agriculture, and plough land in particular, is one of the key sources  of man made carbon dioxide. Using GM crops reduced  CO2 emissions from agriculture by 9 million tons in 2005 by cutting down on the use of machinery to spray chemicals and helping the spread  of no-till farming. That is equivalent to removing almost 4 million cars from the roads. [12]


INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND GEOPOLITICS

Access to food production technologies is a central element of food security, and security in general. The UN Convention on Biodiversity urges that the countries “...which provide genetic resources are provided access to and transfer of technology which makes use of those resources, on mutually agreed  terms, including technology protected  by patents and other intellectual property rights.” [13]

The issue of intellectual property rights is used by the opponents  of agricultural biotechnology, as well as antiglobalists. Their argument is that “security of the farmers and the country as a whole will be compromised by dependence on foreign and multinational corporations, which are the key producers  of biotech plants and crop protecting agents”. But on the other hand, globalization will provide the farmer with a choice of suppliers. There is only a handful of key GM technology suppliers, but they are all in stiff competition with each other. In addition, countries that have embraced agricultural biotechnology are finding their own ways of ensuring their technological independence. India relies chiefly on joint ventures, which bring production facilities into the country. China announced several years  ago  that it will treat  agricultural biotechnology as a national security priority. It has declared  the industry off limits to foreign investors, pouring instead its own formidable resources into the R&D effort. The country has no lack of expertise in the area thanks to the Chinese expats returning back to the homeland.

There are many ways of tackling property rights issues, but it is obvious that a nation can feel completely “secure” if the bulk of the technologies it relies own are indigenous. That gives it a competitive edge and can be used as a potent geopolitical instrument. China is now using agricultural technology to bolster its international clout – it has become  a large donor of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and given $30 million to a trust fund that supports developing countries in improving their agricultural productivity to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. As part of the agreement, China will provide experts to developing countries for technical assistance and training as well as agricultural inputs and small-size equipment. [14]

Chinese plant biotechnology is also strengthening  the country’s regional leadership. Pakistan is close to withdrawing from a protocol of intentions with Monsanto on buying the multinational’s GM cotton technology, because China has offered a similar technology on better financial terms. And it would be quite reasonable  to assume  that America’s geopolitical weight, especially in the developing world, is based  to a large extent on its exports of food aid, seeds and agricultural technology, as well as its international role as a leadings agricultural producer. There is obvious synergy between geopolitical clout and agricultural exports – the more food and animal fodder a country exports, the stronger its geopolitical influence, which in turn offers better export opportunities, resulting in greater competitiveness and bolstering national security.


AGRITERRORISM

Many countries view the possibility of a terrorist strike on agricultural targets (agriterrorism)  as a serious threat to national security, especially after the events of 9/11. Agriterrorism is defined as deliberate introduction of plant and animal diseases to create a climate of fear, damage the economy, and undermine public order and stability. [15]

Agriculture can hardly be viewed as a potential primary target for terrorists, because such an attack would not result in direct human casualties or large scale destruction, therefore lacking the crucial shock factor. But it is still a vulnerable target. That is why plants resistant to potential terrorist weapons  such as pathogens or pests  can be an effective means of bolstering security. An additional benefit of developing GM organisms is that this process always involves the creation of diagnostic kits and DNA analysis tools, which can be very important for monitoring and early detection of any problems.

Of course, destroying plants and animals is not the end in itself for agriterrorists. It is just a means of inflicting economic damage to create a climate of social tension and undermine confidence in the government’s policies, which constitutes  a fundamental threat to the nation’s stability and security. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but opponents of agricultural biotechnology often build their argument on mythical and spurious risks to win the public over to their side. Government decisions  designed  to protect  public health and well being and based on professional advice from the expert community are often subjected  to unwarranted criticism. Amplified by the scaremongering media, this “criticism” does an excellent job of achieving the terrorist goal of spreading  fear and undermining confidence  in the government’s decisions. The state has an important role to play here by launching a public education campaign, which would make a fundamental contribution to national security. Many countries are already doing this. In September  2008, the Chinese approved the decision to invest $3.5 billion in the twin programs of developing GM crops and educating the consumers about the GM products. [16]


CONCLUSION

Agricultural biotechnology is hardly the solution for every problem of food security or national security. But it is a powerful tool, especially when used in combination with the existing traditional technologies.

These technologies appear  to be easily available, but their effective use requires many other boxes to be checked. No country can  put them to good use without a strong biological research capability, a modern seed breeding program, or a system of protecting intellectual property rights. The importance of public education  and the role of the media have already been discussed. In addition, any living organisms – including farm animals and plants – that have been engineered to possess new traits require careful and meticulous risk analysis to see how they will interact with the environment and what effects they will have on the health of the consumers.

The essence of modern approach to biotechnology was accurately reflected in the final communiqué of the G8 summit at Hokkaido in June 2008: the G8 leaders have agreed to “accelerate research  and development and increase access to new agricultural technologies to boost agriculture production; we will promote science based risk analysis, including on the contribution of seed varieties developed through biotechnology.”


Notes

1. Strategy of National Security of the Russian Federation until 2020. Approved by Presidential Decree No. 537 on May 12, 2009.
2. Jared  Diamond, Guns,  Germs,  and  Steel:  The Fates of Human Societies  (N.Y.:  W.W. Norton & Company, 1997), p. 14.
3. Henry Ford, My Life and Work (Leningrad: Vremya, 1924), pp. 6–7.
4. Cartagena   Protocol  on  Biosafety  to  the  Convention  on  Biological  Diversity.  UNEP, 2001.
5. Cotton is a source of fiber and oil, but cotton seed is also a strategic reserve of animal fodder.
6. Clive James,  “Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2008,” ISAAA Brief, No. 39, 2008.
7. G. Brookes, P. Barfoot, “GM Crops. The First Ten Years – Global SocioJEconomic and Environmental Impacts,” ISAAA Brief, No. 36, 2006, p. vii.
8. Ibid.
9. I.P. Otiman, E.M. Badea, L. Buzdugan, “Roundup Ready Soybean, a Romanian Story,” Bulletin UASVM Animal Science  and Biotechnologies, No. 65 (1–2), 2008, pp. 352–357.
10. Based on report by the Plant Protection Department of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, 2003.
11. The Economist, April 11–17, 2009, p. 52.
12. G. Brookes, P. Barfoot, “GM Crops…”, p. xv.
13. Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992, Article 16.
14. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
15. “Agroterrorism: threats  and  preparedness,” CRS  Report  for Congress,  Congressional  Research Service, Updated March 12, 2007, Order Code RL32521.
16. GMO Compass.
    

Reference to the source is necessary to use (Alexander Golikov: “Modern agricultural biotechnology and national security”, 2009, “Security Index” No. 3–4 (88–89), Volume 15, pp. 135-140)