*Source: Food and Agricultural Organizations, "Provisional Indicative World Food Plan," vol. 1, op. cit., page 207.

Obviously the developing countries must deal effectively with the problem of crop destruction by pests, or much of the upward thrust of the Green Revolution will be lost entirely. Indeed, the Green Revolution itself, by simplifying the agro-ecosystem, may actually create more favorable conditions for pests. New high-yield varieties may lack resistance to indigenous insects and diseases. The extension of irrigation, the greater use of fertilizers, and other modern methods foster higher and more reliable yields, but at the same time can bring about an increase in pests, diseases, and weeds. Double-cropping merely compounds the problem. Chemical agents in great variety are available to combat the depredations of pests. There are insecticides, fungicides, and materials for rodent control. Indications are that except for campaigns against locust-breeding areas, the use of these chemicals has been more for curative than preventive purposes. Further, the emphasis has been more on the protection of industrial and export crops than on domestic food crops. This situation may change as the small farmer becomes more knowledgeable and as advisory services are made more widely available. In the long run the problem will be to control crop losses in the fields without creating serious ecological problems. A great deal of research is necessary to develop cheap and effective crop protection agents which can be applied without the risks to the user or the environment that accompany so many of the present pesticides and insecticides. Research could also focus on the development of genetic resistance to plant diseases, the introduction of predators and parasites of the main insect pests and rodents, and sterilization of the male in some species of pests.

Effective crop protection will also require large-scale experimentation to test the results of research in operation and to work out their costs and benefits. Demonstrations will be necessary so that farmers can learn to use new methods and products developed by research. The extension services of the developing countries can help in these activities and in the organization and execution of pest surveys and control schedules. In general, the chances for effective pest control will be enhanced by strengthening the ministries of agriculture in the LDCs, and by encouraging the farmers to act jointly for the protection of their crops.

Crops also need protection after harvesting, which calls for the design and construction of better storage facilities. Rats, insects, and other pests do much of their damage in the primitive facilities available in the LDC's. Many existing storage facilities offer little protection from tropical rains, which can ruin the harvested grain. It is possible to construct storage bins or warehouses that are ratproof and refrigerated, and can be fumigated with nonpersistent insecticides which are not released into the environment until they have lost their toxicity. It would seem quite important that modern food protection and storage techniques be adopted in the LDCs. The greater the urban population, and the farther that population is from the location of food sources, the more important the need for utilizing such techniques. 35

At present, the less developed countries will have to rely on simple food-preservation techniques. These involve better designed and more efficiently operated storage facilities-preferably serving whole communities and more widespread use of well-known methods such as sun-drying, pickling, and preservation with sugar. More sophisticated methods can be introduced as general economic conditions improve.

The widespread adoption of the new seed varieties poses the possibility of heavier losses due to disease and infestation. Previously farmers selected their own seeds, so that neighboring farms might have two or more strains growing simultaneously. This diversity provided a certain built-in protection against widespread plant diseases, because all varieties are not equally vulnerable. But the new wheat from Mexico, which has been introduced in a wide belt running from the Middle East through India and Pakistan, involves only a small range of genotypes. The appearance of some new type of wheat rust in any part of this vast region could cause massive crop damage, since it would involve an entire area, all planted with essentially the same strain.

This potential hazard can be reduced in several ways. One is a diversified breeding program which can more or less regularly come up with new varieties. This should be supplemented by a capable and well-organized plant protection service which can identify serious outbreaks and move promptly to stop them. The prime responsibility

35 Other methods of food preservation are dehydration, refrigeration, heat sterilization. radiation, fermentation, brining, and smoking. Dry foods, often preserved by natural field curing in the sun, have traditionally constituted a major food resource and can be expected to do so in the future. They need to be protected from spoilage, rodents, insects, and spillage. Protection can probably be provided more efficiently in larger storage centers, operated either under private ownership, by cooperatives, or by the governments. Refrigeration makes it possible to transport perishables over great distances and also extends their shelf life. The problem with respect to widespread refrigeration is one of cost, including improved highways and rail systems. Increasing urbanization in the LDCs may make it more feasible economically to install cold storage units in warehouses or markets. For the time being, however, it appears unlikely that refrigeration will be adopted on a very broad scale in the LDCs. Heat sterilization in hermetically sealed containers (canning) also appears to be too costly for widespread adoption by the LDCs. Glass or plastic containers may prove acceptable substitutes. Radiation treatment is another potentially useful technology for preserving food and controlling insects.

here rests with the developing country, but the aid-giving countries and the multilateral agencies which have promoted the agricultural revolution need to give attention to the problem as well.36

THE PROBLEM OF MARKETING

How do the benefits of the Green Revolution reach the ultimate consumer? How is the farmer to be rewarded for his increased crop yield? At present the marketing systems in the countries which have been the beneficiaries of the new seeds are simply unable to cope with the situation. In 1968 India's wheat harvest was 35 percent greater than any previous record, and the storage transport, grading, and processing operations were all unable to accommodate the surplus. The local market intelligence system was similarly overwhelmed. In one year the number of acres planted in the IR-8 rice in West Pakistan rose from ten thousand to almost one million. The country had an exportable surplus of rice, but no facilities to process it efficiently for the export market. In the Philippines the fast-maturing rice must now be harvested during the monsoon and dried in mechanical driers. It is no longer feasible to let the rice dry in the sun. Countries which imported large amounts of U.S. grain in the 1950s and '60s and geared their distribution networks to moving grain inland may now find those systems obsolete. On the other hand, such older systems as had served to move food from the countryside to the cities have tended to atrophy with disuse. India, Pakistan, and Indonesia have particular problems of this type.

An adequate marketing network requires an adequate transportation system. The more agriculture in the LDCs turns from subsistence to commercial enterprise, the greater this need becomes. In recognition of this fact, one of the most favored development projects for at least a decade has been the farm-to-market road. Both AID and the World Bank have loaned hundreds of millions of dollars for such projects to develop domestic markets, to link the hinterland with port cities, and to reach world markets. Sometimes a road built for another purpose can open up a market to the products of agriculture. A case in point is the highway from Bangkok to Korat, in Thailand. Built essentially to give the military quick access to Thailand's northeast, where Communist guerrillas are active, the highway was important in making Thailand a major exporter of corn because it linked large areas of fertile soil with Bangkok and the world market.

36 The simplified ecology implicit in the Green Revolution presents a serious question as to long-range global security. If agricultural production is reduced to a few genotypes, any pest that consumed one of these and that did not succumb to man's chemical controls could wipe out all the crops of a nation or a continent. Such events have happened in the past (the Irish potato famine, for example), and simplified genetic strains increase the probability that they will happen in the future. The best protection against such a catastrophe is a global early warning system to sound the alarm and set in motion the cooperative efforts of plant pathologists and agronomists of all countries. In his Laureate address on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Norman E. Borlaug, the agronomist who heads the International Wheat Research and Production Program of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico City warned: "The only protection against such epidemics, in all countries, is through resistant varieties developed by an intelligent, persistent, and diversified breeding program, such as that being currently carried on in India, coupled with a broad disease-surveillance system and a sound plant pathology program to support the breeding program." This, he said, could help to "checkmate any important changes in the pathogens." (Norman E. Borlaug. "The Green Revolution: For Bread and Peace." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (June 1971), page 43.)

Storage, grading, and market intelligence must also be handled efficiently if a marketing system is to be satisfactory. The lack of adequate storage facilities contributes to wide seasonal price fluctuations, costly to small farmers. This same lack can have national consequences. For example, Iran was forced to export some of her bumper wheat crop in 1968 because there were inadequate facilities for storing it. Some storage is also essential for such inputs as fertilizers and insecticides.

Grading systems are important because they give buyers and sellers a comman point of reference and thus can speed the sale of large amounts of grain. Grain can change hands in vast quantities in the United States without being seen by either buyer or seller, because the elaborate grading system provides a standard that is thoroughly understood. In contrast, grain sales in India may consist of no more than a few sacks, which change hands after prolonged negotiations, with the buyer personally feeling, smelling, and perhaps tasting the product. This type of primitive transfer system obviously hampers the full realization of the benefits of the Green Revolution.

Finally, there is the matter of market intelligence. A country can have a surplus of food in one area and a deficit in another, even if it has an efficient transportation system. A developing country needs information on possible export surpluses lest it export too much or be overcautious and export too little. Thus market intelligence can be a very important adjunct to the process whereby an LDC earns foreign exchange, a vital part of the total development process.

THE PROBLEM OF TASTE

It is a particular irony of the Green Revolution that the extra food made available by the high-yielding seeds should meet with consumer resistance. There have been widespread complaints about both the taste and the texture of the new wheat and rice. Research now in progress is focused on the mundane question of cooking and milling properties of the "miracle grains."

Dealing with Shortages of Protein in the LDC's

Probably the most important of the qualitative deficiencies from which the LDCs suffer is the shortage of protein, a class of compounds essential to life.37 Protein is a generic term for a group of nitrogenous compounds, the amino acids. Protein is essential to the maintenance and growth of the human body, as body protein is continually breaking down and must be resupplied. The need for protein is strongest in preschool children, and pregnant and nursing women. Yet according to AID the typical child in a less developed country usually gets the poorest food in the family. This is because of a common notion that he is able to digest only bland foods, and because most mothers in these countries know nothing of the nutritive value of foods nor how to prepare them so as to retain their nutritional value.

U.S. Agency for International Development. "The Protein Gap. AID's Role In Reducing Malnutrition In Developing Countries" (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970), page 7.

It is essential that the diet contain enough protein; it is also essential that the protein consist of an approximate balance among the eight amino acids essential for humans: isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, tryptophan, threonine, and valine. These amino acids must be supplied through food intake, as they are not manufactured by the body.

HIGH-PROTEIN FOODS

Foods which best supply essential protein are animal products— meat, poultry, fish, cheese, and eggs. Ânimal protein in general contains a proper balance of the essential amino acids. Plants are less satisfactory as sources of protein, because they do not synthesize and store balanced proportions of the different amino acids. However, approximately five-sixths of the world's population has to obtain its protein supply from plants-that is, from the cereal grains wheat, rice, and corn.

*Bernice Watt and Annabel Merrill. "The Consumption of Foods" (Washington, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1963), pages 66-67.

Animal foods are costly to produce, costly to transport, and difficult to preserve in tropical climates. Of the 25 million tons or so of highquality animal protein available annually, most is consumed by the one-sixth of the world's population that lives in the prosperous, developed world. In consequence, more than 300 million children in the LDCs are exposed to threat of retardation in their physical and mental growth and development.38 When these children become adults, their potential may have already been blighted by malnutrition. Many contract kwashiorkor, a protein-deficiency disease that strikes children particularly, but also assails other vulnerable groups-pregnant women, nursing mothers, and the elderly. Severe kwashiorkor tends to be fatal; even a mild case may weaken the child to the extent that other normally-minor diseases, like gastro-intestinal infections or whooping cough, can be fatal. The irony of kwashiorkor is that those afflicted may have had enough to eat, in terms of calorie intake, but not enough essential protein.

EASING THE SHORTAGE OF PROTEIN

To deal with the persistent shortage of protein in the LDC diet many alternative approaches are offered. The U.S. began this effort during World War II by supplying surplus dry milk powder, first to the

38 United Nations. Economic and Social Council. "Report of the Advisory Committee on the Application of Science and Technology to Development." (New York, 1968.)