Agricultural reporters urged to “talk” in plain language to farmers

by Ola Al-Ghazawy

Reporters shifted their attention away from the main news agenda in the Arab world – oil and the struggle for democracy – to food midway through the World Conference of Science Journalists, in Doha June 27-29.

Nadim Khouri, who is director for the Near East and North Africa for the International Fund for Agricultural Development, told a session on food security that, “Governments have concentrated for too long on improving yields and productivity, but the right thing to do is to focus on improving farmers’ lives.”
“To boost our agriculture production we have to give a great attention to the farmer,” he said, and had advice on how journalists can help. “When you want to deliver a message to the farmer it has to be simple and clear, as farmers are simple people, so you have to deal with them on that level.
“So do not go to the farmer and talk to him in strange language or use too scientific terms. This way he can understand and co-operate with you, otherwise he won’t. You also have to show him the benefits from what you are advising him to do, so he will co-operate to boost production.
“If the farmer loses, you lose as well.”

Mahmoud El-Solh

Khouri said farmers would like to improve production, but widespread illiteracy blocks knowledge about climate, soil conditions and other factors that affect their ability to grow crops.

He urged “cultivating technology,” not just “transferring” technology, because transferring technology may just mean machines and tools that can reduce employment, which leads to other problems.

Journalists also heard from the Director of the International Centre for Agriculture and Research in the Dry Area (ICARDA), Mahmoud El-Solh.
“The Arab world faces severe shortages of food combined with price increases, and at the same time we face many obstacles in the way of boosting agriculture production,” El-Solh said.

El-Solh said the effects of normal hot weather had been exacerbated by climate change, as rainfall has decreased, temperatures have gone even higher, and new pests and diseases have appeared.

The hot weather has been accompanied by soil deterioration, lack of groundwater and increases in water salinity, El-Solh said. He said the region also suffers from faulty agricultural policies and not enough agricultural research, on top of political instability which threatens food security in the region.
“I do not want to be pessimistic; there are a lot of ways to escape the poverty trap,” El-Solh said.

He said ICARDA is working with other organizations to decrease poverty and to protect natural resources, “and we found that we cannot achieve food security through the current methods, so there has to be a scientific change.

“For example Syria in the early 1980s was importing most of its wheat, but in by the 1990s it began to achieve self sufficiency by using new wheat strains and better irrigation.

He said by applying science, countries can maintain crop yields and decrease the use of pesticides. He gave as an example, an effort in co-operation with Morocco to fight the Sunn pest (also called the corn bug), which attacks cereal crops and has caused serious losses in Iran, Iraq, Syria, turkey and Afghanistan.

Trans-border diseases such as Ug99 or black rust which harms wheat, has moved by wind from Uganda to Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and then Iran and Yemen. So ICARDA has begun to develop new strains resistant to it. Similarly, yellow rust began in western Asia but began to spread faster because of higher temperatures.