Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs - Biotechnology

Harvard Development Expert: Agricultural Innovation Offers Path to Overcome Hunger

James F. Smith and Calestous Juma — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 12:46:08 -0500

The world can only meet its future food needs through innovation, including the use of agricultural biotechnology, Belfer Center development specialist Calestous Juma said in an address to graduates of McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Since their commercial debut in the mid-1990s, genetically designed crops have added about $100 billion to world crop output, avoided massive pesticide use and greenhouse gas emissions, spared vast tracts of land and fed millions of additional people worldwide, Juma said during the graduation ceremony where he received an honorary doctorate. He asked the graduates to embrace innovative sciences that alone will make it possible to feed the billions who will swell world population in decades ahead, especially in developing countries.

How Africa Can Feed the World

Calestous Juma — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 11:23:50 -0500

"Neglect of agriculture has been a defining feature of Africa's economic policy over the last four decades. The future is more promising. Today Africa has become a major destination of agricultural foreign direct investment."

A Plea for Agricultural Innovation

Calestous Juma — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 08:34:09 -0500

Addressing today's agricultural challenges requires a more balanced view that must be guided by evidence. But more importantly, it requires an optimistic outlook that recognizes the power of human creativity in responding to global challenges.

Rebooting African Economies: Science and Engineering for Rapid Economic Transformation

Calestous Juma — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 16:41:11 -0500

A lecture by Calestous Juma from 3:00–5:30 PM, April 18, 2013, at the Golf Course Hotel in Kampala, Uganda. Organized by the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA). Africa's identity has historically been associated with its vast natural resources which have shaped not only its political culture but also defined its place in the global family of nations. In recent years, however, a new picture of Africa has started to emerge. African economies are increasingly being view as rapid adopters of emerging technologies. The aim of this lecture is to identify approaches for leveraging the world's fund of scientific, technological, and engineering knowledge for rapid economic transformation.

Engineering Green Growth

Calestous Juma — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:08:17 -0600

"Recent trends in a variety of engineering fields have shown the prospects of pursuing ecologically sound technological leapfrogging. For example, the rapid adoption of mobile phones in African countries demonstrates how connectivity can be increased while reducing the ecological footprint of communication. Similarly, the rapid adoption of genetically engineered crops has shown how agricultural production can be enhanced while reducing the use of harmful agricultural chemicals."

Developing Country Farmers Bridge the 'Biotechnology Divide'

Calestous Juma — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 08:50:07 -0600

"Farmers in developing countries, however, are bridging the 'biotechnology divide.' According to a new report by Clive James of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), 'For the first time, developing countries grew more, 52% of global biotech crops in 2012 than industrialized countries at 48%.'"

Persecuting Biotechnology

Calestous Juma — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:41:00 -0600

"Nearly two decades of propaganda and advocacy based on questionable scientific evidence forced many countries to forego the benefits of a new technology even before its merits had been assessed. In effect, these restrictions have introduced a new class of risks associated with not being able adopt a new technology even where it would confer benefits to farmers, consumers, and industrialists."

Biotechnology and Africa's Strategic Interests

Calestous Juma — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 15:59:04 -0600

"Biotechnology offers Africa a wider range of economic opportunities than the Green Revolution did. It is already being used to improve food production and establish or revive cotton production. Its economic impact is therefore likely to go well beyond the farm sector to include industrial development."

Innovation Key to Unlocking Africa's Horticultural Potential

Calestous Juma — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 15:33:11 -0500

"Biotechnology has the promise of leading to increased food security and sustainable forestry practices, as well as improving health in developing countries by enhancing food nutrition. In agriculture, biotechnology has enabled the genetic alteration of crops, improved soil productivity, and enhanced natural weed and pest control. Unfortunately, such potential has largely remained untapped by African countries."

Africa Needs to Invest More in 'Life Sciences' to Benefit from Technology

Steve Mbogo and Calestous Juma — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 14:31:19 -0500

Africa is yet to adopt full scale technology-led development. Steve Mbogo spoke to the Director of the Belfer Center's Science, Technology, and Globalisation Project and professor at Harvard University Calestous Juma on the opportunities that await the continent as a late comer.

Africa Must Wake Up to the Reality That Hunger is Now a National Security Issue

Calestous Juma — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:12:29 -0500

"The tools available to India in the 1960s are not sufficient to address the challenges that African agriculture now faces. These include a rapidly-growing population, productivity loss due to ecological disruption, environmental decay, droughts, climate change, and conflict. Biotechnology offers additional tools that can help Africa address some of these challenges. It is another moment that calls for the kind of political courage that led to the adoption of the Green Revolution."

Facebook Won't Save Us

Niall Ferguson — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 12:29:03 -0500

“Are you a technoptimist or a depressimist?” asks Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and a member of the Belfer Center’s Board of Directors. “This is the question I have been pondering after a weekend hanging with some of the superstars of Silicon Valley. I had never previously appreciated the immense gap that now exists between technological optimism, on the one hand, and economic pessimism, on the other. Silicon Valley sees a bright and beautiful future ahead. Wall Street and Washington see only storm clouds.”

Economic Impacts and Impact Dynamics of Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) Cotton in India

Jonas Kathage, Matin Qaim and Calestous Juma — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 19:20:17 -0500

Despite widespread adoption of genetically modified crops in many countries, heated controversies about their advantages and disadvantages continue. Especially for developing countries, there are concerns that genetically modified crops fail to benefit smallholder farmers and contribute to social and economic hardship. Many economic studies contradict this view, but most of them look at short-term impacts only, so that uncertainty about longer-term effects prevails. The authors address this shortcoming by analyzing economic impacts and impact dynamics of Bt cotton in India.

Why Kenya Has to Adopt Biotechnology in Farming

Calestous Juma — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 09:38:25 -0500

"Those countries that adopt agricultural biotechnology today will be better prepared to use the same techniques to solve health, industrial and environmental problems. The underlying knowledge of genomics is the same and is remarkably versatile. As an early adopter, Kenya is now applying mobile technology to other fields such as health and agriculture."

The Darker Side of the Bio Industry

Juliette Kayyem — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 12:42:38 -0500

"...[O]ne of the fundamental challenges for scientists today is how to communicate basic and vital safety information about the threats we face....Numerical scales work....The public does not need to grasp all the details of the science behind changes to the scale. It just needs a way to know, and process, what is normal, heightened, and extreme danger. This is particularly true given that biological threats are invisible, causing a type of fear distinct from those we can feel or see."

Executive Program Fosters Regional Innovation

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 09:12:35 -0500

In the modern global economy, nations do not compete; it is specialized regions that compete, according to Calestous Juma, faculty chair of the Innovation for Economic Development executive program. To help countries strengthen their regional innovation systems, the Belfer Center will join Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Education in sponsoring a high level executive program beginning May 28.

Precision Farming Yields Many Gains

Robert Paarlberg — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:09:38 -0600

"Greater precision in modern farming raises a farm's income, brings down food prices, and is good for the environment. China will want to move toward precision farming using its own unique mix of solutions, based on both high-tech and low-tech methods, including both conventional and biotech seeds. The new Chinese farming model that emerges can lead agriculture in all of Asia toward a more prosperous, environmentally sustainable future."

Seeding New African Agricultural Universities

Calestous Juma — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:40:00 -0600

"Over the last decade considerable work has been done to redefine the role of government in agricultural research, decentralize research activities, increase stakeholder participation, identify new financial instruments, and strengthen system-wide linkages. These measures have been purposed on an incremental basis. They have indeed yielded commendable results. The next challenge, however, is to build on these achievements and pursue bold steps aimed at upgrading the status and performance of agricultural institutes by creating genuine innovation systems that involve research, training, extension, and commercialization."

Critics of Biotech Crops Proved Wrong

Calestous Juma — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:06:45 -0600

"Over the 1996–2010 period, biotechnology crops have reduced 443 million kilogrammes of pesticide use. This did not only reduce the spraying of chemicals that destroyed biological diversity, but they also cut down harmful exposure by farmers."

Feeding the Next Generation: Science, Business, and Public Policy

Calestous Juma, Josh Drake and L. Val Giddings — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:10:58 -0600

Today, three of ten people on the planet rely on others to grow their food and 900 million remain chronically food insecure. By 2050 the global demand for agricultural production is expected to double. Half of the global population will live in cities and will need to be fed through market channels. Meeting these demands will require significant increases in agricultural productivity. Modern, science-driven farming including genetically modified crops represents the best chance of generating the increases in agricultural productivity necessary to feed our future. This paper's overall conclusion is that genetically modified crops can and should play a critical role in agricultural productivity. It is offers a roadmap for those interested in objectively evaluating both the risk and benefits of biotechnology in agriculture.

Africa's Agricultural Revolution Will Be Driven by Research and Technology

Calestous Juma — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:59:20 -0600

"Unlike the Asian Green Revolution that focused on increasing productivity, Africa's agricultural revolution is focusing on using new technologies to solve local problems. Its humanistic touch is particularly evident in the attention it is paying to improving local crops."

Science Meets Farming in Africa

Calestous Juma — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:56:26 -0600

"Africa has a long history of exporting resources and importing food, despite the potential to meet its own food demands, reduce poverty, and drive economic growth. Unfortunately, major international agencies such as the United Nations (UN) have persistently opposed expanding biotechnology to regions most in need of its societal and economic benefits."

Preventing Hunger: Biotechnology is Key

Calestous Juma — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:52:57 -0600

If African countries can't plant genetically modified crops to produce more and healthier food, vulnerable populations will be at risk, argues Calestous Juma.

Researchers Draft Blueprint to Boost Energy Innovation

James F. Smith — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:55:23 -0600

The U.S. government could save the economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year by 2050 by spending a few billion dollars more a year to spur innovations in energy technology, according to a new report by researchers at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. The three-year project by the Belfer Center's Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group calls for doubling investment and adopting policy changes in energy technology.

Seeding Diplomacy

Calestous Juma — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:40:07 -0500

"The rising concern over global food price volatility has put agriculture at the centre of international cooperation. But unlike the 1950s, when food aid became a major tool in international food policy, modern interactions among states are being redefined by globalisation and the associated knowledge flows. The interactions are part of a field that can be loosely referred to as agricultural diplomacy."

Agricultural Biotechnology: Benefits, Opportunities, and Leadership

Calestous Juma — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:10:20 -0500

"The United States has been a leading light in agricultural biotechnology as a platform technology and continues to serve as an important role model for countries around the seeking to address global food challenges. A key source of this leadership has been its commitment to using a science-led regulatory system for determining the approval of new products. The rest of the world needs this demonstrated leadership now more than ever given rising food prices and related political unrests around the world. Failure on the part of the United States to champion agricultural biotechnology will undermine confidence in the ability of the global community to confront the challenges of food security. Retracting from using science and technology to address emerging challenges will not result in any savings; it will only defer problems and future costs are likely to be higher."

Advances in Science, Technology, and Engineering

Calestous Juma — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:54:55 -0500

"The Green Revolution played a critical role in helping to overcome chronic food shortages in Latin America and Asia. The Green Revolution was largely a result of the creation of new institutional arrangements aimed at using existing technology to improve agricultural productivity. African countries are faced with enormous technological challenges. But they also have access to a much larger pool of scientific and technical knowledge than was available when the Green Revolution was launched in the 1950s."

Stop Demonising Foreign Investors in Agriculture, They're Not Grabbing Land

Calestous Juma — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:18:57 -0500

"Nearly 60 per cent of the world's available arable land is in Africa. What is needed is a vision among African leaders that would help the continent to contribute to global food needs while fostering local prosperity. Efforts to achieve this have already been started through foreign investments in agriculture."

Growing the Economy

Calestous Juma — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:59:12 -0500

"Sustaining African economic prosperity will require significant efforts to modernise the continent's economy through the application of science and technology in agriculture. In other words, agriculture needs to be viewed as a knowledge-based entrepreneurial activity."

U.S. Book Launch of The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation In Africa

Calestous Juma — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 21:11:56 -0500

The U.S. book launch event for The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa by Calestous Juma will be Friday, April 22, 2011, 10:30am – 12:00pm at Preston Auditorium, The World Bank, 1818 H Street, Washington, D.C. RSVP for this event here: http://bit.ly/hmE773