Lauren Richter

Food and Agriculture Organization U.N., Rome, Italy

I completed my CCBES internship at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) contributes to global efforts to ameliorate hunger through four central approaches: providing information, sharing policy expertise, providing a meeting place for nations, and bringing knowledge to the field (www.fao.org). International organizations of this type play a unique and valuable role in that they attempt to bridge academic and/or research spheres with political spheres by analyzing global trends in environmental resources and recommending policy based on these trends. FAO is composed of eight departments: Technical Cooperation, Sustainable Development, Agriculture, Economic and Social, Fisheries, Forestry, General Affairs and Information, and Administration and Finance.
As a volunteer at FAO I interned in the Social and Economic Department for an agricultural economist. I worked for the editor of the department’s flagship publication The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA); this year’s edition posed the question: can biotechnology meet the needs of the poor? As the 2003-2004 SOFA was published in May of 2004, my boss assigned me the task of engaging in follow-up research on current studies on the use of biotechnology in developing countries. Essentially my job was to compile a database of recent economic research on genetically modified crops using the FAO agricultural library.
My learning objectives included gaining expertise in a specific aspect of the environment and working on a social change issue in a professional atmosphere. Both of these objectives were met through my internship at FAO, as my summer assignment focused specifically on current global uses of biotechnology. Interestingly enough, the more I learned about biotechnology the more complex the issue became, as global issues of this nature have ramifications in multiple realms. Perhaps it was the interdisciplinary nature of my summer research which proved the most challenging and exciting aspect of the internship.
My internship at FAO was an incredible learning experience on a number of levels. As a sociology major it was interesting to work in the unfamiliar field of agricultural economics. Learning about a discipline by working with professionals in the field was, in some respects, more valuable than studying economics in a classroom. Researching genetically modified organisms for an economist was fascinating as it entailed a wide spectrum of disciplines, ranging from biology to philosophy. My supervisor was specifically interested in the most recent economic studies on GM crops, however with such an issue one cannot escape the wide environmental and social implications of this new technology. One unique advantage of volunteering in a large international organization was the wide array of disciplines being applied to the problem of global hunger. In addition to my research, I had access to various seminars and conferences held at FAO during the summer. Two events in particular were the First World Organic Seed Conference, and an economic and social department seminar on biotechnology. I attended the Organic Seed Conference from July 5-7 where I was exposed to a variety of issues related to organic seed. The most interesting part of the conference was a panel discussion on the co-existence of GM and organic seed, which brought together panelists including a representative from Monsanto, a conventional seed breeder, an organic farmer from Sri Lanka, and a scientist from the Netherlands to name a few. The panelist I found most intriguing was the representative of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements from Uganda. His background was in both chemistry and development studies and his comments on the panel were particularly interesting to me – as he spoke of the wide spectrum of approaches to this issue and the manner through which one’s discipline will affect one’s opinion on this matter.
Working with and being engaged in research pertaining to economic analysis provided me with an opportunity to see the application of economic theory to real world issues. As my knowledge of the role of economics in assessing and prescribing actions for resource use grew, I better understood the challenges facing human resource management and the manner through which relationships with the environment could be improved through more “environmentally conscious” economic approaches. During the summer I came across a handful of papers citing inadequacies in current economic methodologies being applied to environmental resources and in particular the evaluation of GM crops. Certainly I came across a wide spectrum of material both for and against various applications of biotechnology and specifically genetic modification in my research, and typically one could guess the position of the article or paper just by looking at the source (ex. Greenpeace vs. Monsanto). The research I came across which has influenced my senior integrative project the most, are those papers by economists themselves criticizing the methodologies used by their peers in evaluating environmental resources. In addition, I spoke with a number of individuals in the Economic and Social department about their thoughts on the question of economic growth and the environment, which directly influenced the direction of my SIP.
For my senior integrative project I would like to address two perhaps related issues: namely the question of economic growth and environmental sustainability and/ or the question of economic valuations of the environment. Is sustainable development a matter of appropriate economic valuations of the environment? What could an “appropriate” valuation of an environmental “resource” look like? What values are taken into consideration? What is the relationship between values and incentives?