The Green Revolution (W)

The Green Revolution

The Third Agricultural
Revolution

What is the Green Revolution?

●The Green Revolution was the invention
and diffusion of high-yield grains with the
goal of combating global hunger

○1960s-1970s

○Characterized by use of hybrid, high yield
seeds, synthetic fertilizers and chemical
pesticides

○Increased yield in existing farmland rather
than expanding to new land

Multiple Choice

Who is the scientist most closely associated with the Green Revolution?

• Norman Borlaug

• Neil deGrasse Tyson

• Rosalind Franklin

• Alejandra Bravo

Multiple Choice

In what country did the first successful "Green Revolution" project occur?

• China

• India

• Mexico

• The U.S.

Pros & Cons of the Green Revolution

PROs

• Higher yields

• Less land needed for agriculture

• Reduces poverty

• Reduces hunger

• Strengthens economies of LDCs

CONS

• Creates dependency on corporations for seeds and chemicals

• Heavy use of chemicals creates environmental and health problems

• Creates pest and weed resistance over time

• Requires a lot of water

Multiple Choice

What is another down side to "green revolution" agriculture?

• Promotes tyrannical governments

• Child Labor

• Higher yields means additional recipes are needed

• Promotes a lack of diversity of crops

Multiple Choice

Which is true about the Green Revolution?

• Sub-Saharan Africa has not benefited as much as other regions of the world.

• Mexico did not benefit from Green Revolution techniques.

• Rice varieties failed to live up to expectations in Asia.

• India now has so much farm debt that it imports rice from Thailand.

Multiple Choice

Which of the following agricultural technique is NOT part of the Green Revolution?

• The application of chemical herbicides

• Spreading manure to enhance yields

• Plants selectively bred for higher yields

• Use of dwarf varieties

Multiple Choice

Most likely, which of the following people economically benefitted the MOST as a result of the Green Revolution?

• A wealthy landowner of high rise apartments

• A wealthy rural landowner

• A subsistence farmer in Thailand

• King Leopold III of Belgium

Multiple Choice

Which of the following is NOT a positive result of the Green Revolution?

• Fewer starving people

• Increases wealth inequalities

• Crops that are less sensitive to fluctuations in sunlight hours

• Double cropping

Multiple Choice

Which of the following is a problem created by double cropping?

• Small farmers struggle to get enough help for critical planting/ harvesting times.

• Crop dusting creates bad health outcomes

• dwarf varieties have stronger stems that can hold up the larger, heavier heads of wheat or rice

• If one crops the top and the bottom one is left with no shirt at all

History of Green Revolution: India

1943: Bengal Famine

Around 3 - 4 million people starved to death.

The major reason: a British wartime decision to withhold rice from the people and store it in case Allied troops needed the food.

Secondary reasons:

1. Drought

2. Inadequate carrying capacity (# of people a region can support)

History of Green Revolution: India

●1961: Head of Mexican wheat project,

Norman Borlaug invited to India
○Result: Adoption of dwarf wheat and rice

○10x annual yield

●India is now a major exporter of rice

So what changed?
Gains were made by:

• Dwarf varieties: plants are bred to allocate more of
their photosynthetic output to grain and less to
vegetative parts.

○Hybrid plants created by cross-breeding different
varieties

• Planting in closer rows, allowed by herbicides,
increases yields.

•Short, strong stalks can support heavier grains due to
higher-yield

• Bred to be less sensitive to day length, thus
double-cropping is more plausible.

○The ability to grow multiple harvest in the same
year

• Very sensitive to inputs of fertilizer and water.

Multiple Choice

What was a change that resulted from the Green Revolution?

• Hybrid plants were created that needed less water

• Poor farmers got the chance to borrow money from banks

• Short, strong stalks can support heavier grains of higher-yield plants

• Women delayed marriage

Multiple Choice

What made double cropping possible?

• Shorter plants just grow faster

• Plants that are less sensitive to day length

• Trade agreements like NAFTA

• New machines like the seed drill

Criticism & Ethical Concerns

•Starvation of many prevented, but extra food might lead to
higher birth rates.

○Do you think this is true?

•Dependency on core countries increased; rich-poor gap
increased (especially for chemical fertilizer and GMO
crops).

•Wealthy farmers and multinational companies do well, small
farmers become wage laborers or unemployed –
dependent.

•1980s environmental groups pressured Rockefeller
Foundation to stop support of Borlaug’s techniques

○Synthetic fertilizers (usually derived from petroleum)

○Chemical pesticides

○Need for A LOT of water (irrigation)

• BUT…

…it’s hard to argue with results.

•Life expectancy in less developed countries
increased by 10 years in less than two decades

○From 43 in 1950s to 53 in 1970s.

○In 2022: 62 for men and 67 for women in
the least developed countries!

•More than a billion lives saved from starvation

•Famines still happen but usually not due to
environmental factors

○Major causes of famines AFTER the Green Revolution are

• Bad government policy

• War

Multiple Choice

Between 1960-1962 around 30 million people died of starvation in China. Why?

• World War II

• Colonial policy of the British

• Drought followed by mud slides.

• Chinese government policy known as "The Great Leap Forward"

“The Green Revolution was criticized by social
activists on the ground that the high-yield technology
involving the use of fertilizers and pesticides are
environmentally harmful. Similarly, some economists
felt that the new technologies would bypass small and
marginal farmers even though the technologies are
scale-neutral, they are not resource-neutral. This led
to my coining the term ‘ever-green revolution,’ to
emphasize the need to enhance productivity in
perpetuity without ecological harm”

Green Revolution-Reflection

M.S. Swaninathan

Scale is a major factor:

--it amplified the existing economic disparities
between the rich and the poor at a subnational scale

--at the national scale, India became a country
which was no longer dependent on importing
grains

--there has been no major famine in India since
the Bengal Famine of 1943

Green Revolution-Reflection

Multiple Choice

Which is true about the Green Revolution

• It addresses issues of gender inequalities.

• It amplifies existing wealth inequalities.

• It is carbon neutral.

• It does not benefit from economies of scale.