食料増産のための技術的課題と国際協力

抄録

Food production remains an important concern to be tackled in an increasing world population. Before, most developing countries experienced low yields due to insufficient food production technology. Hence, international cooperation for developing countries was born and human inventions on improved technology became an important tool. The first biggest change in the production system was during the agricultural revolution from the 18^th to 19^th century. This involved rotation cropping, mechanized farming and enclosure system. Next was the large-scale farming establishment guaranteed by the opening of Chicago international grains market. These past two revolutions emphasized extensive farming. The third was the Green Revolution (GR) period taking place in the 1950s. During the GR period, high-yielding varieties (HYVs) and high fertilization with irrigation were introduced. The emphasis here was intensive farming.

Government and donor-country assistance through technical cooperation enabled the farmers to adopt the modern technologies and national food self-sufficiency levels were achieved. The technical cooperation experience in Asia proved this. First, Japan assisted in technology generation only. Later, technological systems were incorporated through model farms system establishment adapted to location-specific conditions. This spread further to regional level giving more emphasis on extension. This sometimes lacked local adaptation thus more basic cooperation was undertaken. The development paradigm in the 1990s expanded to social aspects, including participatory and sustainability concerns. However, at the micro-level, still some of the landless farmers have not benefited much.

In Africa, farmers have not benefited, too, because the GR system did not adapt very well in the region. This was both an issue of technical and insufficient infrastructure support. African agricultural environment condition is severe, thus, the need for more emphasis on infrastructure and appropriate small-scale technology program provided that there is peace and order in the society. With such condition, the NERICA rice may or may not achieve yields similar with the HYVs in Africa.

Currently, technical cooperation is in Indonesia. Technical and infrastructure support, fertilizers and chemicals are provided on a loan basis, and extension system established. Japan ODA umbrella system technical cooperation combined all above elements. Based on the 15-year observation, the sustainability of the technology is related with the farmers' needs and the existence of experienced key persons in the area. Future materials may be discovered through biotechnology but, scientifically, the seed itself can not provide yield without infrastructure, skills enhancement and material support. Africa still lacks these elements. The challenge remains on how to overcome these problems. Biotechnology may produce super materials but to make these locally-adaptable is more important concern.