ABOUT |
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Since 1979 Hans Herren, a Swiss entomologist, has been working in Africa on the biological control of pests and disease in natural and sustainable ways. In 1994, Dr. Herren joined the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya and served as its director general and chief executive officer until 2005. Dr. Herren is currently a President of the Millennium Institute, Arlington, VA. |
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Dr. Herren is the president of the International Association for the Plant Protection Sciences, and of BioVision, a foundation he created to promote the implementation of sustainable and holistic science-led development projects. He also serves as editor in chief of the International Journal of Tropical Insect Science. |
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Dr. Herren's work in improving the livelihood of the poor in the tropics has earned him several awards, among which are the prestigious World Food Prize in 1995; the Kilby Award (1995) for extraordinary contribution to society through science, technology, innovation, invention and education; the Brandenberger Prize in 2002, for contributions to food security and environmental protection in Africa; and the Tyler Prize in 2003, for his work on mealy bug destruction of cassava crops.
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| INTERVIEW |
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I got to Africa a bit by chance. I was looking for a job, after I finished my postdoctoral fellowship in Berkeley doing biology control with Robert van den Bosch. I was just looking around in magazines and journals at the positions which were available around the world. I answered an advertisement for an entomologist in a maize program in Nigeria, but because of my experience I was offered the cassava mealy bug and green mite biocontrol position instead. I came to Africa, really by chance, to work on the mealy bug project. I have now been here for twenty-four years.
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My area of interest is biological control. There are not many opportunities in the West for this kind of study and certainly not thirty some years ago when I was looking for a job. Although integrated pest management was on the books, biological control of pests and disease in particular was not very high on the agenda. There was an opportunity here in Africa to implement knowledge on the biological control, not only in natural ways, but in a very sustainable way when nobody talked about sustainability. I think that's what really brought me here and has kept me around for so many years.
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When I came for the job interview in 1979, I gave a seminar. People actually walked out of the seminar when I was talking about biological control and ecosystems. Afterwards, I heard people say, 'What are we going to do with this eco-freak?' And that really shows what the mentality was in many of these institutions where, basically, breeding was thought to be the best way to improve production, not manipulating the environment and using nature to control the pests and diseases.
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"The fields that were attacked by the mealy bug were wiped out within one season."
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The cassava mealy bug, as it came to be known, was introduced to Africa accidentally from somewhere in the Americas, probably during the mid-seventies. A few years after its introduction it turned out to be a tremendous problem for the cassava crop. Cassava is a staple of two hundred million people in Africa. The fields that were attacked by the mealy bug were wiped out within one season.
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It spread across the continent extremely fast. The mealy bug spread within a from the area where it was introduced, which was Kinshasa Reservation, in the Congo basin to the west, to Dakar, Senegal and all the way to the east in Maputo, Mozambique. This happened because the mealy bug, being imported to Africa, did not have any natural enemies.
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"The big job in the beginning was actually to locate the mealy bug, somewhere between California and Argentina. It was a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack."
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My first job was to find out where the mealy bug came from. The insect was not known in its place of origin because it was under some sort of natural control. We needed to find what kept the mealy bug in check in its area of origin.
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The big job in the beginning was actually to locate the mealy bug, somewhere between California and Argentina. It was a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. I was able to narrow the search by focusing only on the area of origin of the cassava plant. According to the literature, the cassava has five places of origin: Southern Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, in the Amazon Basin, Peru, and the border between Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia. I set out to search every one of these areas for mealy bugs, and also for the beneficial insect, the natural enemies of mealy bug.
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"Within three months the mealy bug was basically a matter of the past."
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Eventually, after a year and a half of work, the mealy bug was found in the border areas between Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina. We also found the beneficial insects--wasps and ladybugs feeding on the mealy bugs.
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We brought the wasps and ladybugs to Africa. They were carefully checked for their specificity to the cassava bug and to make sure that they did not carry diseases.
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About two years into the program, we had released the first mass array of insects into the cassava fields around the campus in Nigeria. Within three months the mealy bug was basically a matter of the past: the natural enemies were eliminating the mealy bug.
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"About twenty million lives were saved, which turns out to be about one dollar per life saved."
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The area in Africa where cassava is grown is two and a half times the area of the United States. There was no way we could disperse the beneficial insects from the ground. I devised a program to rear millions of ladybugs and parasitic wasps and then, using an aircraft based system, shoot them out of airplanes flying over cassava fields.
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The donors thought this was a totally crazy plan, never mind the management of ICIPE then who thought that this Hans Herren guy is a bit megalomaniac, coming up with this big program using airplanes. Eventually some donors saw the merit of doing something like this and funded the program to use aircraft for the release operation.
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Before we found this solution people were starving, because cassava is really the main staple. They eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They get most of their nutrition through cassava. Cassava also resists drought. It was a plant they very badly needed.
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Twelve years and twenty million dollars later, we solved the problem of the mealy bug permanently from Dakar to Maputo. About twenty million lives were saved, which turns out to be about one dollar per life saved. It's not a bad output for such a program.
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"Unless governments and the donor agencies really pay attention to some of the major infrastructure problems in these countries, there is not much hope for the farmer."
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Eventually, I started to realize that there is more to the hunger fight than just to produce more food. The bigger problems are actually outside of the food production itself. They are in the infrastructure, in the land ownership, in credit availability, in the capacity to train the farmers. If these problems are not dealt with, farmers will not be able to produce more, even with the new technologies. We have to be very careful about what do we do, and in what order.
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Roads are a problem. When you produce agricultural goods way out in the country, and only have bad roads to transport your maize, sorghum or tomatoes, your costs are so high that you cannot be competitive with anybody.
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This means that there are a lot of areas in Africa which could actually produce food, but basically do nothing, because it is not worth it. You cannot compete with the imported goods because of the high cost of transport. It makes all these products noncompetitive in any market, even local markets.
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Unless governments and the donor agencies really pay attention to some of the major infrastructure problems in these countries, there is not much hope for the farmer.
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"We were looking for solutions which the farmer could apply without accruing costs."
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With stem borers we were looking for solutions which the farmer could apply without accruing costs, like using insecticides. So we developed system push-pull.
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We knew that certain plants attract pest insects like the stem borers. We also knew that there were other plants which would attract beneficial insects or insects that kill the pests. We found that napier grass attracts stem borers and desmodium attracts beneficial insects, and both are very widely grown as fodder for livestock.
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We tried to bring the pieces together, to rearrange the puzzle, so that everything actually worked in concert. We were able to rearrange a puzzle within the field in such a way that brought many, many benefits. One benefit was controlling the stem borer. Another one was attracting beneficial insects that are the enemies of stem borer.
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We also discovered, by chance, that desmodium suppresses striga, which is the witch weed, a tremendous problem for maize and sorghum crops in all of Africa. In addition, desmodium, being a legume, fertilizes the soil as it grows by enriching it with nitrogen. Desmodium also protects the soil from erosion and increases the moisture retention, because it covers the soil in a permanent way.
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"A good seed is only as good as the soil you're going to plant it into."
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There is no silver bullet for anything, in particular when you talk about growing crops. A good seed is only as good as the soil you're going to plant it into. We have ignored the soil biology part of our agronomical research for too long.
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Soil is like an organism. It is a living thing. We will have to pay more attention to soil when we grow crops. We need to grow soil in order to grow crops. Having the miracle seed which is resistant to diseases and insects is useless unless that plant finds a home, which is suitable. We cannot grow anything in just sand. We have to pay attention to the balance of organic matter in the soil versus the inorganic component.
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"The problem with aid is that the projects are usually too short."
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The problem with aid is that the projects are usually too short. No problem in the tropics, particularly here in Africa, can be resolved over two or three years, which is about the amount of time the donors will give you to solve a problem, before they shift their own priorities. So that is a big problem.
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Another problem is that projects are very narrow in scope. And one does not promote development, or sustainable development, as everybody talks about, by sort of a single technology approach.
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For example, it does not do any good to help farmers with a new variety of maize when that farmer does not have oxen-because it's been killed by tsetse fly--to till the land. So we have tremendous problem. Too many projects target a narrow area, when what actually we need is to work very broadly.
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"We cannot have people working in their own little worlds or vacuum; what is needed is an integrated approach to development."
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One very positive development is that there is better coordination among many of the donors. The fact that there is better coordination is very, very positive. We cannot have people working in their own little worlds or vacuum; what is needed is an integrated approach to development.
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I think this is where we are going to make a lot of progress quickly. Given that the people can let go of their egos and work with others to try to bring the different pieces of that puzzle together in sustainable development. It's time to take action on something we've talked about for a long time.
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"If we can deal with the insect vectors, we have probably solved almost half of the health problems."
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Insects are actually key elements in human health, especially in Africa where you have illnesses such as malaria, dengue fever, sleeping sickness, which are transmitted by insects. In human health, if we can deal with the insect vectors, we have probably solved almost half of the health problems.
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Animal health is also important. We are losing several million cattle a year in Africa, due to sleeping sickness called nagana, which is transmitted by the tsetse fly. If we deal with this, we will not only have more milk and meat, but also more draft power, which is the power people need in order to grow crops. You can't really work with the hoe anymore and people cannot really afford tractors and the fuel to power them. The draft animals are very, very important.
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"Here we are expected, with these few crumbs, to develop an agriculture which is as efficient as western agriculture and can even compete with western agriculture. It is not possible. It is a drop on a hot stone."
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The international agricultural research funding is about, let's say, to be generous, about $500,000,000 a year. That's what you spend in the CGIAR system. And this is half of what the Western world spends on agricultural subsidies per day. Per day.
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Now all of a sudden things become clear. Here we are expected, with these few crumbs, to develop an agriculture which is as efficient as western agriculture and can even compete with western agriculture. It is not possible. It is a drop on a hot stone. The amount of investment we make in agricultural research has to change drastically.
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We need more well-trained people in Africa who can deal with the problems on their own and in their own environment. We need more research and we also need to spend more money supporting the universities and research institutions here.
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"This is a very successful example of how donors can work together to broaden a project's scope and impact."
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We also need donors to widen the scope of their funding. The push-pull system with desmodium and napier grass, is an example of this. The Rockefeller Foundation funded the research component and the training of the scientists. Then the Gatsby Foundation came in to give support to extension work like training the farmers. Finally, the Swiss BioVision Foundation continues to support more extension work. This is a very successful example of how donors can work together to broaden a project's scope and impact.
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The next step is to include the big international NGO's in this process. World Vision and Care have a lot of people on the ground who can take the research out to the farmers. We need to bring them together in collaboration with the research institutions to make sure the information gets to the people.
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Many of these organizations are trying to change their approach to food aide. Instead of getting food from America or Europe, they try to buy it from a neighboring area. The World Food Program does a lot to support local production, like improving local storage of excess crops. This is better than always bringing it in from elsewhere, because that is not very sustainable.
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If we add up what the Rockefeller, Gatsby and Swiss Foundations have given to the push-pull system project, it comes close to 1.8 million dollars. The program is a major breakthrough in developing a new system: not just one technology, but a whole system. And it is really a small amount of money for the return. Imagine if this program was implemented on a larger scale say, throughout eastern, southern, and western Africa, where striga and the borers are an issue in maize and sorghum production; it would pay for itself.
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We still are struggling to get the funding to bring it to the next step. It is a technology and like any technology, you cannot just throw it out there. It needs to be followed up and perfected as we go along.
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"Now free trade, to me, looks like it applies only to the developed countries, and not so much the developing countries."
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When we are talking about promoting agriculture in the tropics, we cannot ignore the issue of agricultural subsidies in developed countries. It is a major issue. As long as the farmers in the North are subsidized at two billion dollars a day, there is no chance that farmers in Africa can compete in a world where free trade is the order of the day.
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Now free trade, to me, looks like it applies only to the developed countries, and not so much the developing countries. There is no free trade as far as I can see in terms of agricultural goods. It's a one way street where products come to Africa from Europe and North America and reach the store shelves without any duties attached. But when the African farmers and business people sell mango paste, it is taxed when it gets to North America or Europe.
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"The production costs of maize produced here in Kenya are about three times as much as the maize being imported."
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We really have to look at the whole picture of trade agreements and farm subsidies in order to really rectify the situation. The production costs of maize produced here in Kenya are about three times as much as the maize being imported. There is something wrong with this.
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Where is the incentive for an African farmer to produce something which is three times more expensive than what you can import? Consequently, most of the corn that Kenyans need in addition to their own production is imported from the United States.
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Maize actually grows better in the Midwest than it grows here. We know that. If I were a farmer here I would grow something else to sell to the Americans and Europeans. It would be something that westerners cannot grow, like anything that has to do with tropical fruits and vegetables. These products actually have a chance to penetrate the American and European markets. We need to work out an exchange and think about what grows best in each environment.
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Economists and policy makers need to pay much more attention to all of this and come up with solutions about how to improve the environment to make it conducive for farmers to grow more and better crops. When farmers grow more they will have income.
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If you want the market to really regulate things, then let the market be and not allow government intervention, including subsidies. We have to get rid of the subsidies. You cannot have the market forces work and then you come from behind the scene and give huge agricultural subsidies, when at the same time it's forbidden for the developing countries.
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"We have different rules for different people."
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The World Bank has basically said that African governments cannot subsidize agriculture. Even if they wanted to, the governments really do not have the money for subsidies. But the fact that they are not allowed to do it is wrong. We have different rules for different people.
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If you include external costs, the subsidies that the West is giving to their product are in order of $500,000,000,000 per year. That is a huge number! So, again, how do you expect the developing countries to compete here? It is just not possible. This to me is the root of a lot of the problems here.
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"The genetically modified plants on the market today do not make much sense in the developing countries."
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I am questioning the use of GMOs in increasing food production. The genetically modified plants on the market today do not make much sense in the developing countries.
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If we have problem, let's say a pest problem which we cannot solve with biological control, then maybe we need to go and look at genetic engineering. Using GMOs are comparable to using insecticides-it's the last thing I'm going to look into. I think they are to be avoided whenever we can and brought in only if they are very, very much needed.
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"We have to have a better understanding what in a particular area makes people poor."
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What we need, and we don't have, is a program which would be called Understanding Poverty. When you understand why people are poor, you know where to start and what direction to take. You can do many things out there, but you may actually not do the right thing. We have whole series of issues which we have to deal with. But we have to have a better understanding what in a particular area makes people poor. If we understand this, we have technologies and science that can help the people move out and get moving up.
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If poverty is the first issue of concern, then health is a close the second. Health and poverty are very much linked. Healthy people are able to work and earn money so they can buy what they cannot produce themselves.
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Another problem is land tenure and credit. There is not one farmer in the United States or Europe, who, when they start their cropping season, does not go to the bank and borrow money to buy the seeds, the fertilizer and pay the loans on the tractor. Now try to do this here when you don't own the land. On what basis are you going to get a loan? So I think that system of land tenure and micro credit has to be resolved as part of this equation.
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Most people in Africa do not own their land: it is owned by communities, by chiefs, or by government. Unless you have a title to your land, it can be taken away. You basically have a lease and who knows how long you are going to have it. This is very big issue throughout Africa and is a long way from being resolved.
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"This is a sure bet to get the money back."
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We are promoting beekeeping as a side income for farmers. It has been tremendously successful. Actually, microcredit banks are coming out to ICIPE to ask where are the beekeepers we have trained because they want to lend them money.
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This is a sure bet to get the money back. What we have here is a very interesting piece of what it takes to get farmers started with cash, because a beehive doesn't cost much money. And, there is no amount of honey you could not sell these days. This is cash in hand which he or she can then invest in other areas on their farm.
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"To continue to subsidize agriculture is not beneficial in the long term, neither for American agriculture nor for world agriculture."
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The American public has been very generous, not so much through the government, but through private foundations. The American public should pressure the U.S. government to give more aid. Also Americans can support the organizations doing the work here so that they can play a consistent and long term role. You cannot have only two-three year programs. Funding has to be available in large quantities, over a period of five or ten years, to really make a difference.
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Another way to make a difference is to try to influence policy makers to change the subsidies. I think that is something that the American public can change. You vote for certain people who are making certain decisions. To continue to subsidize agricultural production is not beneficial in the long term, neither for American agriculture nor for world agriculture. I think it's actually going to bring the whole system down.
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Farmers need support, but then this support should go towards promotion of sustainable agricultural practices or for ecosystem services such as clean air, water, biodiversity, landscape maintenance, pollination, etc. After all, farmers are also the producers of these goods that are taken for granted by the urban dwellers and for which they also need to pay for.
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At the end, I would like to add a word of thanks to those US based foundations and donors that have been funding research and over many years. Foundations like the Rockefeller Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have made a tremendous difference.
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Hans Herren can be reached at hherren@icipe.org
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