Essay Example on Blue Revolution: The New Wave in Global Agriculture

Introduction

The Green Revolution is a collection of research technology transfer initiatives that took place between 1950 and 1960s that led to an increase in global agricultural output, especially in the developing countries. In particular, the initiative led to the availability of high-yielding varieties of cereals such as rice, wheat, and dwarf. The green revolution was associated with controlled water supply, agro-chemicals, and chemical fertilizers.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Blue revolution refers to the remarkable emergence of aquaculture as an essential and highly productive activity in agriculture. Aquaculture entails all types of active culturing of plants and animals that occur in fresh or brackish, and marine waters.

Who patents seeds, and why? Who benefits from the patenting of foodstuffs?

Theoretically, anyone can patent seeds. In reality, seeds are patented by large corporations, most of them from Europe and North America. For example, the soybean seed is patented by six merchants of grain namely Continental, Cargill, Bunge, Mitsui Cook, Louis Dreyfus, and Andre and Company.

With the patent, the companies can control everything about soybeans including its storage and transport facilities, thereby ultimately being in control of the prices of the commodity. These companies have patented seeds so that they own the gene, often for profit maximization. In other words, by owning the patent, a company has the monopoly to control many aspects of the seed for many decades, often for the sole purpose of maximizing their profits.

Only large multinational corporations benefit from the patenting of foodstuffs. Essentially, the patenting of seeds, including all genetically modified varieties of a species, irrespective of the concerned genes or how they are transferred makes one inventor control the entire trade. The control extends to what farmers grow in the fields and their gardens.

The control of an entire gene is what Shiva (2000) refers to as "economic hijack." In economics, a monopoly is a better business because of the ability of one or a few firms to dictate the market, particularly the price. The large multinationals benefit from the patents of foodstuffs because they create a monopoly.

What is “forced trade”? Give specific examples of how trade is manipulated in favor of global multinationals.

Forced trade is whereby the market is manipulated in a way that the small players who make the majority of the participants in the producers are forced to play by the rules set up by few but powerful market players. Due to their financial muscles, the few but powerful players can use various means to manipulate the market, including the use of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) IMF, World Trade Organization (WTO), and the World Bank. For example, the global trade in grain is owned by about five multinationals.

The multinationals actively shaped international trade agreements by playing a huge role in the establishment of the WTO during the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. Through the WTO and with the assistance of the general adjustment policies, the five multinationals were able to control agricultural production in favor of export business from Europe and the United States to the Third World. In 1991, using a structural adjustment package for India, the production of cotton was expanded exponentially at the expense of food crops. In the end, farmers end up relying on the same multinationals to export their cash crops. In the end, it is the multinationals that dictate what to produce and how much money to earn from it.

What is “bio-piracy”? Give some specific examples. Who benefits from bio-piracy?

Bio-piracy is the practice of commercially exploiting naturally occurring genetic material or biochemical, particularly through the practice of obtaining patents that restrict its future use. At the same time, bio-piracy involves the unwillingness to pay fair compensation to the communities from which the biochemical or genetic material comes from. Bio-piracy is supported by some laws from western countries, particularly in North America and West Europe. These distortions in the law to allow bio-piracy is also enshrined and enforceable by more powerful global agencies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO, World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.

One of the examples of bio-piracy was the patenting of genes of pea-pods, wheat, tomatoes, and peppers that are applicable in over 78 countries. The patent includes the seeds and plants of all species. This patent was obtained by Delta and Pine Land Company and the USDA in 1998. The patent included permission to create sterile seeds by genetically modifying the seeds' DNA to kill its embryos. The company referred to this genetic manipulation as a built-in gene-police.

By killing its embryos, it meant that farmers could not save the seeds of the plants at harvest for future crops because another generation would simply not grow. These patents and the subsequent gene manipulation forces farmers to buy new seeds from seed companies every planting season. The technology and the patent threaten the independence of farmers and food security in many third world countries.

Bio-piracy benefits global multinationals and the governments of the first world countries in Europe and North America. First, within some of its agencies, governments receive money from some of the patents entered. For example, the 1998 patent by Delta and Pine Land Company and USDA guarantees a 5% profit from the sale of seeds containing the built-in gene-police. The USDA is an agency of the United States government. Other patents across the US and Europe guarantee monetary gains to the governments as well.

Perhaps the major beneficiaries of bio-piracy are global multinationals. These multinationals operate in a monopolistic environment by acquiring the rights of existing genes as well as past discoveries through the interpretation of the concept of "prior art."Through the WTO, these western-style "intellectual property rights" have been exported to other parts of the world and the multinationals now can use the existing distortions to extract maximum profits from any other country that is a member of WTO.

What is “bio-safety”?

Bio-safety refers to the prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity. Bio-safety emphasizes on both the health of the humans and the ecology. Seeds are essential to the biodiversity of the planet. As Shiva (2000) outlines, a seed is a vital resource for the survival of life on the planet. Seeds come from nature and over long periods, they have evolved and become better at being resistant to adverse climates. For example, by selecting and saving the best seed from a good crop to plant them in the next season, farmers have ensured the bio-diversity of seeds and global food supply.

The practice of seed selection, saving, and the replanting cycle has been ongoing since the beginning of agriculture. Bio-safety is the opposite of bio-piracy in that it is the refusal to accept the colonization of life through perverse technologies and patents and the ultimate destruction of the food security by some of the rules of free trade that are advocated and enforced by World Trade Organization (WTO). Shiva (2000) advocates for a bio-safety that is based on an abundant supply of seed banks across the world as well as organic farming initiatives. She also observes that bio-diversity can only be attained through the non-recognition of patents on life, including those on seeds.

What are “structural adjustment policies”? What are they intended to accomplish? What is “trade liberalization”? How are structural adjustment and trade liberalization related?

Structural adjustment policies are a set of economic reforms that a nation must agree to get a loan from the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. Structural adjustment policies cover a wide scope of both macroeconomic and microeconomic adjustments that include a reduction in government spending and opening up the country to free trade. The policies are essentially designed to balance the external payments of economically poorly performing countries by increasing export competitiveness and growth and attracting inward flow of direct investment.

The structural adjustment policies were promoted by the Bretton Woods Institutions. The successful receipt of loans and development finance was linked with the political adherence to the policies stated. Some of the conditions that borrowing countries have been required to adhere to include a combination of the following: easing internal regulations to attract foreign investments, devaluation of currencies, improvement of domestic tax collection, privatization of state-owned enterprises, closing of tax loopholes, cutting public sector employment, deregulation of state-controlled industries, and doing away with government subsidies.

In particular, the removal of tariffs and the adoption of floating exchange rates helps give exports greater competitiveness while at the same time boosting domestic demand, often at the expense of a reduction in living standards. It is worth noting that the adjustments worked favorably in some countries but in others, it led to widespread poverty and loss of jobs.

The overall objective of structural adjustment programs has been to encourage economic growth and make the country in question more competitive in the export market to reduce their balance of payment deficits. Other objectives include reducing budget deficits, reducing state control on various industries, attracting foreign investments, and improving the collection of taxes domestically.

However, the 1980s saw a deliberate effort by the lenders to push for political objectives by wanting to introduce political reforms to crisis-stricken poor nations in what Shiva (2000) has referred to as “forced trade.” For example, privatization was aimed at reducing government control on local economies, therefore reducing their power and influence rather than being aimed at reducing budget deficits. As Shiva (2000) notes, multinationals were able to hijack the policies to brutally encourage exports to the third world, causing the death of local industries. For example, the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) led to the loss of jobs for 2.2 million Mexicans and 40% fell into poverty by 1998.

Trade liberalization refers to the reduction or removal of barriers in the flow of services and goods across the border of countries and territories. The removal entails both tariffs and non-tariff barriers. In international trade, tariff barriers include duties and surcharges while non-tariff barriers to trade include quotas, rules, and other requirements. The ultimate objective of trade liberalization is free trade.

Those who support trade liberalization have often argued that free trade is the engine of economic growth besides the improvement in economic efficiency, and lower markets for goods and services which is good for consumers. They have also explained that trade explores comparative advantages of areas of the economy. However, opponents of the idea of trade liberalization have blamed free trade for creating unemployment, suppression of indigenous technology in domestic production activities, and flooding of the market with low-quality products. Hence, trade liberalization is a controversial topic due to the benefits and costs as well as the opportunity costs that the idea presents to different countries.