The
Green Revolution is the name given to the drastic change in
farming techniques which took place in the middle of
last century, resulting in a massive increase in global food production. Although the Green Revolution is often associated with
Asia, it is in fact in
Mexico that the first experiments with intensive farming were performed.
The train of thought which led to the development of intensive farming techniques originated in with 18th century English economist Thomas Malthus who predicted that the world's population would increase geometrically, whereas food production would increase arithmetically – thus leading to a world famine. In the middle of the 20th century, this idea seemed a frightening reality, and in Mexico in 1944 a team led by Norman Borlaug and funded mostly by the Rockefeller Foundation developed a strain of wheat which gestated faster and produced higher yields. It was a great success, and scientists went on to do the same for other grains such as rice and corn. The promise was that this scheme would alleviate poverty and end world hunger through massive increases in yields.
Borlaug, backed by vast amounts of international capital, brought his techniques to India, the Philippines, Thailand and several other East Asian countries. At first it was uncertain whether the local farmers would go along with the plan but despite resistance they were able to be bought off. In the first decade of a widespread adoption of the new techniques grain production increased massively. Though the people who actually farmed the stuff were not much better off their lot was sure to improve in the future, and in the meantime more and cheaper food than ever before was coming into the market. As the years went on, however, problems became apparent and yields began to drop. Ever greater doses of pesticides, fertilisers and other chemicals, and more water for irrigation, was needed. Farmers found that what with there being so much grain they weren't getting as good a price as before, and also that the new grains did not lend themselves to small farming. Many were forced to sell out.
The Green Revolution has certainly "worked" – grain production has increased at a huge rate, and intensive farming, even of animals, is now the norm. At the same time however, it has been a monumental failure in the sense that the people who most needed its assistance have actually become worse off as a direct result. The poor have not been enfranchised, and the number of hungry has not been greatly reduced, if at all. The new high-yield varieties have replaced hundreds or even thousands of different local varieties of rice, each naturally resistant in differing degrees to various pests, and the new crops therefore need ever increasing doses of pesticides and other chemicals. The greatly increased use of chemicals and irrigation has created environmental problems and in recent years yields have remained stagnant or comtinued to decrease while the world's population continues to grow and more and more land is destroyed.
That said, there is more than enough food to feed every single human being on the planet. It is hard to credit those who see the solution to hunger as continuing the rape the earth in order to increase production for the benefit of a small few instead of somehow instituting a more equal system of distribution. As giant conglomerates buy up the traditional family plots the small farmers, forced to migrate to the cities, also lose out to large agrichemical multinationals such as Monsanto. In short, the West once again prospers at the expense of our colonies.
The controversy here is about whether the failure to end hunger is due simply to the new technologies being inadequately implemented, or rather to a fundamental flaw in the ideas behind the "science-based agriculture" of the Green Revolution. Proponents of the former view believe that although there remain problems to be solved, the Green Revolution has been a success and will continue to be in the future. They see genetic engineering as the natural extension of the program begun by Borlaug, which in turn was the natural extension of traditional selective breeding. Borlaug himself has stated that "the potential is enormous" for GM crops to continue the "good work" of the Green Revolution. The environmental consequences of the policy are seen as an unfortunate but, in the scheme of things, unimportant side effects of feeding the world's poor. Of course, this ignores the fact that the world's poor are not being fed anyway.
Those who subscribe to the latter view generally do not see the Green Revolution as desirable or sustainable. They point to the fact that the hybrid high-yield varieties of grain cannot not survive without irrigation and increasingly large doses of chemicals, consequently disrupting the ecosystems of the areas in which they are introduced, as evidence that the Green Revolution is contrary to the principles of good ecological management, and therefore unsustainable. The new strains are farmed more intensively, and without a resting period for the land, hence preventing the natural regeneration of soil. Poisonous chemicals leach into the local ecosystem and poison an already impoverished people. Even Westerners, supposedly the beneficiaries of this plan, suffer from the high concentrations of pesticides in the foods they eat. There is little that can be done to further increase crop yields and it is clear that current practices must changed; most people remain unconvinced that the answer lies in continuing to attempt to control nature in the form of GM foods.
Parts taken from my end of semester 1 2002 HPS essay and assorted other notes. Node Your Homework.