Green Revolution

Over the years many significant agricultural changes have occurred in order to supply enough food for the
growing human population. In this lesson, we will explore the Green Revolution and investigate the
benefits and issues associated with this period.

What Is the Green Revolution?

Throughout history there have been many revolutions that have occurred and changed human lives, such
as the American Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. In the mid- and late-20th century a revolution
occurred that dramatically changed the field of agriculture, and this revolution was known as the Green
Revolution.

Starting in 1945 and going into the late 1960s, American researcher Norman E. Borlaug and Mexico
researchers genetically altered seeds and corn that would withstand the elements and produce more
grains and corn. Once the Green Revolution was initiated, it took Mexico a little over a decade to be able
to self-sufficiently supply themselves with wheat. In under twenty years, Mexico was able to export half a
million tons of wheat around the world.

The Green Revolution's success was significant; it fed a country and also gave them a source of income.
The success earned Borlaug the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, and the Green Revolution has spawned success
in other nations such as India and the Philippines. There has been less success with the process in Africa
due to government disorganization. There is some criticism of the methods used in the Green Revolution
due to its use of fertilizer and scientifically altered seeds.

The Green Revolution was a period when the productivity of global agriculture increased drastically as a
result of new advances. During this time period, new chemical fertilizers and synthetic herbicides and
pesticides were created. The chemical fertilizers made it possible to supply crops with extra nutrients and,
therefore, increase yield. The newly developed synthetic herbicides and pesticides controlled weeds,
deterred or kill insects, and prevented diseases, which also resulted in higher productivity.

In addition to the chemical advances utilized during this time period, high-yield crops were also developed
and introduced. High-yield crops are crops that are specifically designed to produce more overall yield. A
method known as multiple cropping was also implemented during the Green Revolution and lead to higher
productivity. Multiple cropping is when a field is used to grow two or more crops throughout the year, so
that the field constantly has something growing on it. These new farming techniques and advances in
agricultural technology were utilized by farmers all over the world, and when combined, intensified the
results of the Green Revolution.

Benefits of the Green Revolution

As a result of the Green Revolution and the introduction of chemical fertilizers, synthetic herbicides and
pesticides, high-yield crops, and the method of multiple cropping, the agricultural industry was able to
produce much larger quantities of food. This increase in productivity made it possible to feed the growing
human population.
One person who is famous for his involvement in the Green Revolution is the scientist Norman Borlaug. In
the 1940s, Norman Borlaug developed a strain of wheat that could resist diseases, was short, which
reduced damage by wind, and could produce large seed heads and high yields. He introduced this variety
of wheat in Mexico and within twenty years the production of wheat had tripled. This allowed for the
production of more food for people in Mexico and also made it possible for Mexico to export their wheat
and sell it in other countries. Norman Borlaug helped introduce this high-yield variety of wheat to other
countries in need of increased food production, and he eventually won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work
with developing high-yield crops and for helping prevent starvation in many developing countries.

In addition to producing larger quantities of food, the Green Revolution was also beneficial because it
made it possible to grow more crops on roughly the same amount of land with a similar amount of effort.
This reduced production costs and also resulted in cheaper prices for food in the market.

The ability to grow more food on the same amount of land was also beneficial to the environment because
it meant that less forest or natural land needed to be converted to farmland to produce more food. This is
demonstrated by the fact that from 1961 to 2008, as the human population increased by 100% and the
production of food rose by 150%, the amount of forests and natural land converted to farm only increased
by 10%. The natural land that is currently not needed for agricultural land is safe for the time being, and
can be utilized by animals and plants for their natural habitat.

Issues with the Green Revolution

Although the Green Revolution had several benefits, there were also some issues associated with this
period that affected both the environment and society. The use of chemical fertilizers and synthetic
herbicides and pesticides dramatically influenced the environment by increasing pollution and erosion. The
new materials added to the soil and plants polluted the soil and water systems around the fields. The
pollution of the water exposed people and the environment downstream to the chemicals being used in
the farm fields. The pollution of the soil resulted in lower soil quality, which increased the risk of erosion
of the topsoil.

In addition to pollution, the environment was also influenced by the large irrigation systems that were
required to sustain the growth of the plants. The large amount of water required put pressure on the
natural water reserves and resulted in water shortages and droughts. The environment was also negatively
affected by the Green Revolution due to the consumption of more energy. From 1900 to 2000, the
amount of energy put into agriculture worldwide increased 80 times due to the shift from human and
animal labor to the use of large machines. The increase in energy consumption and the dependency on
more fossil fuels has resulted in pollution and has caused harm to the environment.
GREEN REVOLUTION
GREEN REVOLUTION. The Green Revolution was the notable increase in cereal-grains
production in Mexico, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, and other developing countries in the
1960s and 1970s. This trend resulted from the introduction of hybrid strains of wheat, rice, and
corn (maize) and the adoption of modern agricultural technologies, including irrigation and
heavy doses of chemical fertilizer. The Green Revolution was launched by research
establishments in Mexico and the Philippines that were funded by the governments of those
nations, international donor organizations, and the U.S. government. Similar work is still being
carried out by a network of institutes around the world.

The Green Revolution was based on years of painstaking scientific research, but when it was
deployed in the field, it yielded dramatic results, nearly doubling wheat production in a few
years. The extra food produced by the Green Revolution is generally considered to have averted
famine in India and Pakistan; it also allowed many developing countries to keep up with the
population growth that many observers had expected would outstrip food production. The leader
of a Mexican research term, U.S. agronomist Norman Borlaug, was instrumental in introducing
the new wheat to India and Pakistan and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

Borlaug (b. 1914) was hired in 1944 to run a wheat-research program established by the
Rockefeller Foundation and the government of Mexico in an effort to make that country self-
sufficient in the production and distribution of cereal grains. Borlaug's team developed varieties
of wheat that grew well in various climatic conditions and benefited from heavy doses of
chemical fertilizer, more so than the traditional plant varieties. Wheat yield per acre rose fourfold
from 1944 to 1970. Mexico, which had previously had to import wheat, became a self-sufficient
cereal-grain producer by 1956.

The key breakthrough in Mexico was the breeding of short-stemmed wheat that grew to lesser
heights than other varieties. Whereas tall plants tend both to shade their neighbors from sunlight
and topple over before harvesting, uniformly short stalks grow more evenly and are easier to
harvest. The Mexican dwarf wheat was first released to farmers in 1961 and resulted in a
doubling of the average yield. Borlaug described the twenty years from 1944 to 1964 as the
"silent revolution" that set the stage for the more dramatic Green Revolution to follow.

In the 1960s, many observers felt that widespread famine was inevitable in the developing world
and that the population would surpass the means of food production, with disastrous results in
countries such as India. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization calculated that
56 percent of the human race lived in countries with an average per-capita food supply of 2,200
calories per day or less, which is barely at subsistence level (cited by Mann, p. 1038). Biologist
Paul Ehrlich predicted in his 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb that "hundreds of millions"
would starve to death in the 1970s and 1980s "in spite of any crash programs embarked upon" at
the time he wrote his book (Ehrlich, p. xi).

In 1963, just such a devastating famine had threatened India and Pakistan. Borlaug went to the
subcontinent to try to persuade governments to import the new varieties of wheat. Not until 1965
was Borlaug able to overcome resistance to the relatively unfamiliar crop and its foreign seeds
and bring in hundreds of tons of seed to jump-start production. The new plants caught on rapidly.
By the 1969–1970 crop season—about the time Ehrlich was dismissing "crash programs"—55
percent of the 35 million acres of wheat in Pakistan and 35 percent of India's 35 million acres of
wheat were sown with the Mexican dwarf varieties or varieties derived from them. New
production technologies were also introduced, such as a greater reliance on chemical fertilizer
and pesticides and the drilling of thousands of wells for controlled irrigation. Government
policies that encouraged these new styles of production provided loans that helped farmers adopt
it.

Wheat production in Pakistan nearly doubled in five years, going from 4.6 million tons in 1965
(a record at the time) to 8.4 million tons in 1970. India went from 12.3 million tons of wheat in
1965 to 20 million tons in 1970. Both nations were self-sufficient in cereal production by 1974.

As important as the wheat program was, however, rice remains the world's most important food
crop, providing 35–80 percent of the calories consumed by people in Asia. The International
Rice Research Institute in the Philippines was founded in 1960 and was funded by the Ford and
Rockefeller Foundations, the government of the Philippines, and the U.S. Agency for
International Development. This organization was to do for rice what the Mexican program had
done for wheat. Scientists addressed the problem of intermittent flooding of rice paddies by
developing strains of rice that would thrive even when submerged in three feet of water. The new
varieties produced five times as much rice as the traditional deepwater varieties and opened
flood-prone land to rice cultivation. Other varieties were dwarf (for the same reasons as the
wheat), or more disease-resistant, or more suited to tropical climates. Scientists crossed thirty-
eight different breeds of rice to create IR8, which doubled yields and became known as "miracle
rice." IR8 served as the catalyst for what became known as the Green Revolution. By the end of
the twentieth century, more than 60 percent of the world's rice fields were planted with varieties
developed by research institutes and related developers. A pest-resistant variety known as IR36
was planted on nearly 28 million acres, a record amount for a single food-plant variety.

In addition to Mexico, Pakistan, India, and the Philippines, countries benefiting from the Green
Revolution included Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Malaya, Morocco,
Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkey. The Green Revolution contributed to the overall economic
growth of these nations by increasing the incomes of farmers (who were then able to afford
tractors and other modern equipment), the use of electrical energy, and consumer goods, thus
increasing the pace and volume of trade and commerce.

As successful as the Green Revolution was, the wholesale transfer of technology to the
developing world had its critics. Some objected to the use of chemical fertilizer, which
augmented or replaced animal manure or mineral fertilizer. Others objected to the use of
pesticides, some of which are believed to be persistent in the environment. The use of irrigation
was also criticized, as it often required drilling wells and tapping underground water sources, as
was the encouragement of farming in areas formerly considered marginal, such as flood-prone
regions in Bangladesh. The very fact that the new crop varieties were developed with foreign
support caused some critics to label the entire program imperialistic. Critics also argued that the
Green Revolution primarily benefited large farm operations that could more easily obtain
fertilizer, pesticides, and modern equipment, and that it helped displace poorer farmers from the
land, driving them into urban slums. Critics also pointed out that the heavy use of fertilizer and
irrigation causes long-term degradation of the soil.

Proponents of the Green Revolution argued that it contributed to environmental preservation

because it improved the productivity of land already in agricultural production and thus saved
millions of acres that would otherwise have been put into agricultural use. It is estimated that if
cropland productivity had not tripled in the second half of the twentieth century, it would have
been necessary to clear half of the world's remaining forest-land for conversion to agriculture
(Brown, Eco-Economy ).

However, the rates at which production increased in the early years of the program could not
continue indefinitely, which caused some to question the "sustainability" of the new style. For
example, rice yields per acre in South Korea grew nearly 60 percent from 1961 to 1977, but only
1 percent from 1977 to 2000 (Brown et al., State of the World 2001, p. 51). Rice production in
Asia as a whole grew an average of 3.2 percent per year from 1967 to 1984 but only 1.5 percent
per year from 1984 to 1996 (Dawe, p. 948). Some of the leveling-off of yields stemmed from
natural limits on plant growth, but economics also played a role. For example, as rice harvests
increased, prices fell, thus discouraging more aggressive production. Also, population growth in
Asia slowed, thus reducing the rate of growth of the demand for rice. In addition, incomes rose,
which prompted people to eat less rice and more of other types of food.

The success of the Green Revolution also depended on the fact that many of the host countries—
such as Mexico, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, and China—had relatively stable governments
and fairly well-developed infrastructures. These factors permitted these countries to diffuse both
the new seeds and technology and to bring the products to market in an effective manner. The
challenges were far more difficult in places such as Africa, where governments were unstable
and roads and water resources were less developed. For example, in mid-1990s Mozambique,
improved corn grew well in the northern part of the country, but civil unrest and an inadequate
transportation system left much of the harvest to rot (Mann, p. 1038). According to the report by
David Gately, with the exception of a few countries such as Kenya, where corn yields
quadrupled in the 1970s, Africa benefited far less from the Green Revolution than Asian
countries and is still threatened periodically with famine.

The Green Revolution could not have been launched without the scientific work done at the
research institutes in Mexico and the Philippines. The two original institutes have given rise to an
international network of research establishments dedicated to agricultural improvement,
technology transfer, and the development of agricultural resources, including trained personnel,
in the developing countries. A total of sixteen autonomous centers form the Consultative Group
on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which operates under the direction of the
World Bank. These centers address issues concerning tropical agriculture, dry-area farming,
corn, potatoes, wheat, rice, livestock, forestry, and aquatic resources, among others.

Future advances in agricultural productivity depend on the development of new varieties of

plants such as sorghum and millet, which are mainstays in African countries and other less-
developed areas, and on the introduction of appropriate agricultural technology. This will
probably include biotechnology—the genetic alteration of food plants to give them desirable
characteristics. For example, farmers in Africa are plagued by hardy, invasive weeds that can
quickly overrun a cultivated plot and compel the farmer to abandon it and move on to virgin
land. If the plot were planted with corn, soybeans, or other crops that are genetically altered to
resist herbicide, then the farmer could more easily control the weeds and harvest a successful
crop. Scientists are also developing a genetically modified strain of rice fortified with vitamin A
that is intended to help ward off blindness in children, which will be especially useful in
developing countries. While people have expressed concern about the environmental impact of
genetically modified food plants, such plants are well established in the United States and some
other countries and are likely to catch on in the developing world as well.

See also Agriculture since the Industrial Revolution; Biotechnology; Crop Improvement;
Ecology and Food; FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization); Food Safety; Food Supply
and the Global Food Market; Food Trade Associations; Government Agencies; High-
Technology Farming; Horticulture; Hunger, Physiology of; Inspection; International
Agencies; Political Economy .

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Borlaug, Norman. "The Green Revolution, Peace, and Humanity." Nobel Lecture. Delivered 11
December 1970. Available at http://www.nobel.se.

Brown, Lester R. Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth. New York: Norton, 2001.

Brown, Lester R., et al., eds. State of the World 2001: A World-watch Institute Report on
Progress Toward a Sustainable Society. New York: Norton, 2001.

Dawe, David. "Re-Energizing the Green Revolution in Rice." American Journal of Agricultural
Economics 80 (1998): 948–953.

Easterbrook, Gregg. "Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity." The Atlantic Monthly 279, no. 1
(January 1997): 75–82.

Ehrlich, Paul R. The Population Bomb. Revised and expanded. New York: Sierra Club /
Ballantine, 1971. A reprint of the 1968 edition.

Gately, David. "Backgrounder: The Past 25 Years: Successes, Failures, and Lessons Learned in
Feeding the World." International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, D.C., 2001.
Available at http://www.ifpri.cgiar.org/2020/backgrnd/25years.htm.

Lappé, Frances Moore, Joseph Collins, and Peter Rosset. World Hunger: 12 Myths. New York:
Grove Press, 1998.

Mann, Charles. "Reseeding the Green Revolution." Science 277 (1997): 1038–1043.

Walsh, John. "The Greening of the Green Revolution." Science 242 (1991): 26.

Richard L. Lobb