The Green Revolution

“No other activity has transformed humanity, and the Earth, as much as agriculture, but the environmental effects of high-intensity farming increasingly haunt us. In a small world awash with the waste products of humanity, there is a great need to find new approaches to agriculture.” ~David Tilman

The Green Revolution made its greatest impact during the 1960’s and the 1970’s. International teams of scientists worked together to create high-yielding varieties of crops in order to increase the quantity, quality and sustainability of the species. Their early focus was on the staple crops of wheat, maize, and rice (McNeill 219). The varieties created by the scientists were ones that were responsive to fertilizers, resistant to pests and in the United States and other developed countries, it was important for the variety to be easily harvested by machinery (McNeill 219). With a rapidly increasing population it was imminent for the scientists to create a higher volume of food within the same parameters of land. The new and unknown consequences of mass farmed, single cropped land was a challenge unforeseen by the scientists and is still something that agriculturalists and scientists are dealing with today. New techniques of farming have emerged that have fewer environmental consequences however, not all farmers have adopted these new practices.

The first two major international agricultural research centers created in the 1950’s are the International Center for wheat and Maize Improvement in Mexico (CIM-MYT) and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines (IRRI). Today there are 16 centers that all operate together supporting over 8500 scientists and staff with a budget around $340 million (Everson 2). The greatest accomplishment of the “Green Revolution” came with the development of dwarf wheat and rice. The variety created was able to produce a heavy grain-packed head with a strong stalk thus yielding “substantially more grain than previous varieties” (Everson 2). This new variety also responded better to fertilizer than the traditional varieties. The institutes also released varieties of sorghum, millet and barley that could be grown in primarily semi-arid and dry-land conditions in the 1980’s (Everson 3). The scientist’s first goal was to derive a productive “plant type” and their second goal was to breed the variety with specific traits for survival in different locations. These traits include disease resistance, responsiveness to fertilizers and resistance to abiotic stresses (Everson 3). With the creation of these varieties farmers had to purchase their seeds, they could no longer cultivate their own. These costs were offset by the reduced amount of fertilizer needed to maintain the crops. However, farmers would often choose just one crop to purchase and grow in order to keep their costs down, creating what is known as a monoculture. “Monocultures invite pest problems” and often end up becoming resistant to the pest it was designed resist (McNeill 224). This lead to increased use of pesticides which lead to unintended consequences such as; intrusion of the water supply, human tissues and other unwanted places. “The World Health Organization estimated in 1990 that pesticide poisoning killed about 20,000 people per year, mostly in cotton fields” (McNeill 224).

Advances have been made to reduce the incidences of poisoning and to create varieties that are less dependent on purchased inputs as well as research on “farming systems, agronomic practices, integrated pest management and other ‘environment-friendly’ technologies” (Everson 7). In the end it is up to the farmer to decide which technology he or she wants to use. The greater the responsiveness to chemical fertilizers the greater the profitability of the crop and with the average caloric intake rising and food prices lowering it has become a challenge for many farmers in underdeveloped countries to turn a profit (Everson 6). With the ever-present budget cuts of the past decade many agencies have had to cut funding to their science and technology developments. This funding crunch has left farmers to rely on the private sector for advances in biotechnology.

“The welfare of farmers and farm workers not reached by the Green Revolution ultimately depends on the extending the Green Revolution beyond present boundaries” (Everson 7). Everson believes that the Green Revolution in on the right track but fears that all have not benefited from the biotechnological advances made by the agro scientists. Is there a better solution than one that relies on greater chemical fertilizer pest-resistant varieties of sustainable crops needed for human survival? According to David Tilman, author of The Greening of the Green Revolution there have been shown two alternative practices for growing maize that have maintained their yields while increasing soil fertility (Tilman 211). These two methods used “organic” alternatives and no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides were used. One method involved using a manure based system where legumes and grasses were fed to the cattle that in turn ‘fed’ the land with their manure. The second system did not use cattle but instead incorporated nitrogen into the soil with a variety of legumes (Tilman 211). “Amazingly, ten-year-average maize yields differed by less than 1% among the three cropping systems (Tilman 211). With continued efforts among scientists it is possible that the use of pesticides harmful not only to humans but to the environment as well as all living creatures, may someday become extinct.

Works Cited

Evenson, R. E., and D. Gollin. "Assessing the Impact of the Green Revolution, 1960 to 2000." Science 300.5620 (2003): 758. <http://search.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=9848525&loginpage=Login.asp&site=ehost-live>.

McNeill, J.R. “Something New Under the Sun” New York. 2000.

Tilman, David. "The Greening of the Green Revolution." Nature 396.6708 (1998): 211. <http://search.ebscohost.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=1337996&loginpage=Login.asp&site=ehost-live>.